I think of the Orion Astronomy 20x80 binoculars as the perfect "gateway gear" to heavyweight stereoscopic skywatching. They offer a whole lot of binocular for the buck, with big aperture and big-league specs. Plus, they have the quickness of a center focus knob. However, you'll have to make some sacrifices to save money; this set costs about $120.

These 20x80s are a less-costly, lighter-weight and only slightly less-powerful alternative to our Editors' Choice Celestron 25x100. One way to think of it: The Orions give you at least 85 percent of the experience, at half the price of the Celestrons. And, in some ways, the Orions are nicer to handle.

Below: Hands On Video Tour of Orion's Astronomy 20x80s (Click to Play):

The Orion 20x80s and the Celestron 25x100s are very similar in shape and are almost identical in packaging. It's hard to believe they don't come from the same factory in China (as, in fact, do several other brands' binoculars).

Almost exactly like the slightly larger Celestrons, the big Orions come swaddled in a four-sided articulating wrap of nylon-clad thin fiberboard. This rig has an elastic bellyband and a nonstretchy strap with a hook and loop ("Velcro") closure. Thus sheathed, this rig slips into a plastic leatherette shoulder bag. It's not perfect but acceptable at this price point. [Related: See our Buyer's Guide: How to Choose Binoculars for Stargazing]

The Orions' lenses (and, therefore, aperture) are not quite as big the Celestrons,' nor are the prisms quite as safely shock-mounted. But the 20x80s are nicely multicoated. They seem to stretch contrast (bright to dark ratio) a bit, making it fun to soak your brain in the faint starlight of diffuse open clusters or groups of galaxies. Most planetary nebulas are too far away to really see much detail at 20x magnification. But you can get a whimsical sense of what the neighboring suns might think of them.

Fold-down rubber eye guards let us eyeglass wearers get tack-sharp stars at infinity focus. With 17 millimeters (0.7 inches) of eye relief, you may not find the fold-down necessary. The rubber felt very stiff to me, causing me to question whether it might rip in cold conditions. But I haven't found any reports of this.

Best Astronomy Binoculars 2014 (Editors' Choice)

Like others in this class, the Orion Astronomy 20x80s are really a pair of short-tube refracting telescopes, aligned for one set of human eyes to enjoy. But unlike most other large binoculars, these have a center focus wheel. That's both a curse and a blessing. Center focus is faster and easier. But if your main interest is astronomy, your focus won't change much. (The planets, stars and even the moon are all at "infinity," as far as Earth-bound binoculars are concerned.) The focus achieved with individual independent eyepieces (as on the Celestrons) can be more precise and less likely to slip. The Orions I tested had a mushy, dead spot at their end counterclockwise ("left") rotation of the focus knob, but it didn't adversely affect the focus.

Most of the goodness of two-tube astronomy comes from what happens when your brain is painted with two channels of visual information. Just as listening to music in stereo gives you more than just a spatial impression of the audio, binocular astronomy makes you feel immersed in the celestial object and the sky around it. This psycho-perceptive effect stems from what your mind does with two slightly varying data sets. It can infer information about mass, and even allude to an object's likely motion. Your "mental image" of, say, a comet may not be entirely correct. (You may think you see depth or volume of the object that isn't really there.) But it is certainly a more emotionally satisfying experience than peering at the universe with one eye.

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Orion 20x80 Astronomy Binoculars Review: 2014 Edition