Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars

When you want to bring nature up close and personal you need good binoculars and Celestron fills this need nicely. Their 15 x 70 Binoculars are an economical choice for stargazing as well as viewing wildlife at a safe distance.

I was given my original Celestron 15 x 70 binoculars four years ago as a present. I wanted them for stargazing when using a telescope was impractical. They were great for locating comets and even viewing distant objects such as the Orion Nebula. While bulky and heavy (48oz. 1.36kg) they were still transportable when bike-packing into the wide open, dark sky areas for some night time stargazing as well as scanning distant vistas for wildlife during the day. For stargazing I used the tripod mount supplied with the binoculars to hold them steady enough for viewing deep sky objects and planets. (Tripod not included.)

They are reasonable priced at around $150 (Canadian) for the quality of the optics they provide. I have never had a fogging problem or found the image to be blurry. While there are far better high power binoculars available I found the Celestron Skymaster to be all I really needed at a price that I find quite reasonable.

They come with a cheap neck strap which I found uncomfortable for a binocular this large; however, I was able to replace it with an old neck strap that I had. Originally Celestron provided a better strap and they should consider doing so again.

Background

I have taken my Skymaster on numerous airline flights and even packed it across Australia's Outback and it has always come through unharmed. However, in my 4th year of owning them a defect in the focusing mechanism rendered them unable to focus. Celestron was contacted and on the basis of some pictures I sent of the defect they replaced the binoculars with a new pair without a hassle. The replacement took quite some time but this was during the Covid 19 pandemic.