If you're ready for a close encounter with the sun's surface these solar binoculars are hard to beat, though they're best used sitting down or with a tripod.
Except during totality, it's not safe to look directly at the sun through binoculars unless they're fitted with solar filters. That's exactly what the Celestron EclipSmart 12x50mm has, with polymer glass solar filters on the objective lenses that meet the ISO 12312-2:2015 international safety standard. On the underside of the barrels are thumb pads, which indicate where to hold them.Celestron EclipSmart 12x50 at Amazon for $119.
Using the Porro prism optical design — known for good contrast, clarity and less light loss compared to roof prisms — the Celestron EclipSmart 12x50mm has a focus wheel on the top and eyecups with plenty of eye relief. Sadly, the lens caps — for both the objective lenses and for the eyecups — are separate and easy to lose, while the neck strap is on the slender side. Ditto the shoulder bag in the box, which is best described as rudimentary.
The 50mm objective lenses mean a bright image of the solar disk but the ISO standards adhered to mean that it is totally safe to view the sun. What the Celestron EclipSmart 12x50mm is good at is both identifying sunspots and actually separating areas of activity within them. During my test I could see two large sunspots, Active Region 3403 and 3407, front and center, and make out detail within them. I could also see the smaller 3405 also visible on the eastern limb, something not nearly as visible while using the Celestron EclipSmart 10x42 solar binoculars I had on hand .
A lot of folks take a lawn chair to watch a solar eclipse, principally because they take about three hours. That's a wise choice made doubly so if you have the Celestron EclipSmart 12x50 in tow simply because sitting down more easily allows your head to take more of the weight of the binoculars.
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