TUNGSTEN VALLEY — Ah, December, when we wish for… a telescope from Santa? It sounds romantic, using it to view the night sky’s wonders.

But this month, I’m proposing better viewing at lower cost. My advice is based on half a century (since age 14) of watching night skies with a rogue’s gallery of optical gear.

The thing to know about telescopes is, they aren’t easy to use. For those accustomed to viewing flat-screen displays, looking through a telescope eyepiece is difficult and probably disappointing. You have to align your eyeball very precisely within the eyepiece’s field while holding the other eye shut. Otherwise, you see… blankness.

Once you do get aligned, your image will be black-and-white with hints of gray, except for a little color in Jupiter. It won’t look anything like the images you’ve seen from space probes and long-duration camera exposures.

Proficiency with a telescope requires long hours of effort, both with the instrument and with learning to find your way around the night sky. And don’t get me going about automated go-to features. They are mostly a waste of money, not to mention they discouraging you from learning the constellations.

In the end, 90% or more of Christmas telescopes wind up with disappointed users who toss them into closets and garages before driving them over to Goodwill.

Here’s your better option: A decent pair of binoculars mounted on a tripod. Binoculars will give you a better view than Galileo had. And that guy mapped the moon, discovered a miniature solar system around Jupiter, saw Neptune, watched the phases of Venus, and scanned a stellar myriad across the Milky Way.

Binoculars lend you the night’s advantages. They gather far more light than your eyes, and they magnify things.

Binoculars are specified by their powers of magnification and light-capturing. These two numbers are written in sequence with an “x” in-between. For example, “7x50” means 7 power magnification with 50 mm diameter front lenses. It’s spoken, “7 by 50.” For night viewing, 7x50 and 10x80 are prime.

“Try before you buy.” Selecting optics sight unseen is like buying wine without a tasting. You’ll want to compare models to learn how easy (or difficult) it is to get your eyeballs aligned with the gear, and to compare image quality.

Locally, Front Range Birding & Optics has a wide selection of binoculars that you can experiment with in their Boulder and Littleton stores. Their gentle staff will give you great treatment, the sort that we mostly don’t expect these days.

(I shouldn’t have to say this, but: Please don’t be That Guy, who absorbs a salesperson’s effort and then surfs the internet for a lower price.)

Your binoculars will of course need to be tripod-mountable. Look for a tripod and matching head that are twice as sturdy as you think they need to be, and a binocular adapter that mates to the head. Manfrotto makes excellent tripods and heads. Front Range Birding & Optics has adapters.

And the tragic Goodwill ending? If you try astronomical viewing with binoculars, but the night sky doesn’t turn out to be your thing, you can still have fun with back-up activities like bird watching, hunting, or spotting incoming ICE operatives.

Happy Holidays, all.

In December Skies:

The sun begins the month in Scorpius, entering Scutum (the Shield) on December 21. At the winter solstice (the shortest day and the sun’s lowest noon-point of the year) on December 21, Nederland days and nights are 9.3 and 14.7 hours long, respectively.

The moon’s dates are: Full (Cold Moon) December 4; Last Quarter December 12; New December 19; First Quarter December 27.

December Meteors: The Geminids (parent body asteroid 3200 Phaethon) run December 4-17, peaking on the 14th. Visible from 7 p.m. until dawn, but looking best around 3 a.m.

Best Sky Viewing Nights (Minimal Moon): December 12-27.

Sunset (Mid-Month): The Pleiades are rising with red Aldebaran just below. Brilliant Capella is in the northeast. The Andromeda Galaxy is high in the northeast, presenting a nice binocular view. Saturn, Fomalhaut, and Diphda form a striking triangle in the south. Saturn is above, Fomalhaut and Diphda below. Deneb, Vega, and Altair form the Navigator’s Triangle high in the northwest to west. 

Midnight (Mid-Month): The Gemini Twins, Castor above and Pollux below, are nearly overhead in the northeast. Orion is due south, with Sirius. The Great Nebula in Orion presents a terrific view in binoculars and low-power telescopes. Taurus with the Pleiades is nearly overhead.

Sunrise (Mid-Month): Vega is low in the northeast. Reddish Arcturus is high in the east. Orangish Regulus in Leo is almost overhead, slightly offset toward the southwest. The Gemini Twins are close to setting in the west. Capella sets in the northwest.

Mercury, in Scorpius, is low in the east at dawn on December 15.

Venus, in Scorpius, is lost in the sun’s glare at dawn.

Mars, in Scutum, is lost in the sun’s glare at sunset. 

Jupiter, in Gemini, is approaching opposition (January 10) when it’s closest to the earth and gives best seeing. It rises at 7 p.m., is high in the southeast at midnight, and high in the west at sunrise.

Saturn, in Aquarius, is high in the south at sunset, setting around midnight. It forms a striking triangle with Fomalhaut and Diphda below, to the right and left, respectively.

Notable Space Missions: Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky and NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim will land in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-27 capsule, closing out a six-month mission at the International Space Station.

Frank Sanders, a spectrum scientist, takes astronomy-related inquiries at backyardastronomy1@gmail.com.