Binoculars for beginners - Final Frontier recommends beginners to invest in a good pair of binoculars. These are much better value for money than the small telescopes found in catalogues and toy shops. Binocular sizes are given as: magnification x diameter of objective lens. The smallest sets of binoculars, such as 7x20 or 8x21, or compact binoculars, are more suited to bird-watching than astronomy because they do not give a bright enough image at night.

The minimum specification for astronomy use is around 7x50, which should cost around £50 - £100. Better images can be seen with 10x50’s, but the price will increase accordingly. A pair of 11x80’s would give resolution good enough to see Saturn’s rings and the craters on the moon - these would set you back around £400. It is advisable to mount larger binoculars on a tripod with a clamp to keep them steady. There are many good makes of binoculars and tripods, about which any telescope or camera shop should be able to advise. Of course, you can save a lot of money by buying things second-hand from magazine adverts or the internet.

Ann Bonell, President of Leicester Astronomical Society, has this advice for first-time buyers: Before purchase, test the binoculars by focusing on a distant object such as a TV aerial. If the binoculars are OK, you should see a perfect image with no double imaging or colour fringing. If there is any misalignment, then reject them.