The Celestron SkyMaster 15x70s - A Review

"I have been reading horror stories about these binoculars for months"

"The real working aperture is [smaller] due to the clipping of the light cone by the front prism aperture"

"They are a crap shoot, and you sort of have to get lucky to get a good pair"

Wouldn't these words dissuade you from buying a pair of binoculars?

They sure didn't for me, so for Christmas among other things I asked for the Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 binoculars. I chose them because they are:

• Just $55 on Amazon
• Large binoculars for the price of an okay eyepiece
• The cheapest 15x70s I could find

These binoculars are marketed under various other brands such as Barska and Orion, and I believe the Oberwerk 15x70s are very similar. The Celestrons were the cheapest, though. Celestron also makes 12x70s under the "Cometron" line but those were more expensive and I had a feeling I'd need a tripod for either anyway.

I figured that the worst case scenario was that they wouldn't work well and I could return them to Celestron and buy something else. Thankfully this didn't happen.

Boy, was I shocked when I opened the box on Christmas morning! These binos are huge!

(iPhone for scale)

The binoculars come in a very cheap pouch and include a cheap neck strap, a cheap cleaning cloth, and a plastic tripod adapter which is absolutely useless. The neck strap on my dad's $30 Celestron Cometron 7x50s is actually of a higher quality than the included neck strap, so I have since swapped the neck straps.

The focusing knob on these binoculars is large and rubber knurled. It gets a bit stiff in the cold but it works very well. The eyepiece cap is a single unit and is attached to the neck strap so it doesn't get lost, which is a nice feature. 

I was shocked to find Christmas night that I could indeed hand-hold these binoculars, at least for a short time. Keep in mind that I'm no bodybuilder! The shakiness is even more controlled if I sit down in my observing chair. I do notice that my heartbeat causes the binoculars to jiggle even if I rest my elbows on a chair and look straight at the horizon, which is probably an even bigger problem with higher magnification binoculars.

The chief complaint with these binoculars is that they often arrive out of collimation, and that the collimation adjustments are hidden under the rubber armor (which must be destroyed to access them). However I found no problems with mine.

M31 shows definite structure (though it was overhead when I observed it last and as such it was hard to tell) with at least 1 companion. The Double Cluster looks similar to how it does in my 4" Mak. The Pleiades and Hyades are remarkable in these binos, nearly filling the field. The Moon also looks rather nice in these binoculars, with no CA detectable.

Overall, pretty great binoculars. I would highly recommend borrowing some smaller binos first to make sure you can hold a pair of these steady, but if you can I wholeheartedly recommend ordering them. I use these regularly so you will definitely hear more about these.