Practice with your binoculars and find the "Easily seen with naked eye" list first to get used to finding the stars on the SkyMap and pointing with your binoculars. If you must bring charts, you can try to figure out what you just saw while you pass the binos along to the next person. However, it turned out to be no risk at all - as the x10 magnification works brilliantly and the optics allow for exceptional clarity of viewing. Nothing I did improved focus (yes, I followed the directions) and for some odd reason I seemed to suffer from double vision when looking through them (again, configuration was correct).

If I’m honest for general viewing these are probably a bit big for my needs (albeit very bright and sharp) - the 8x40’s are lighter and capable however for distance viewing these are superb.

Also use them for checking out for any worth while sunspots before I lug out any scope to view them with.

I have a fairly large garden area with multiple bird feeders and already have a great (more expensive) pair of Pentax binoculars that I keep in the house for quickly grabbing and getting a closer look at the birds.

I've only ever owned one pair of binoculars before, a smaller Olympus that my parents bought me 20 years ago. I need to pull the rubber eye-cups down to see the entire field of view, which bugs me a lot while birding.