One of the conflicts of reviewing astronomy kit is to find something that you don’t want to have to return – like the Hawke Endurance ED 10x50 binoculars.
They arrived in a semi-rigid clamshell case, immediately conveying the idea that the manufacturer believes them worthy of enhanced protection.
The rubber-armoured binoculars themselves had a light but robust feel, and the armour was especially grippy on the outside of the tubes.
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Also in the case were a neck strap, a tetherable rain-guard type of eyepiece cover, tetherable objective lens caps, a microfibre cloth and a protective pouch for the binoculars.
The hinge was quite stiff, but moved smoothly without any stiction; once you set your interpupillary distance (the distance between the centres of the eyepieces) it is unlikely to slip.
The deeply ribbed metal centre focus wheel moved easily and smoothly without any backlash and took a little more than two turns to go from the 2.5m near focus to infinity.
This slow focus made it easy to achieve critical sharp focus.
The right eyepiece dioptre ring was not as deeply ridged and was much stiffer than the focus. Once set, it won’t easily be accidentally changed.
The twist-up, click-stop eyepiece cups had two intermediate positions between fully up and fully down, so they could be set how best suited us.
We found that with the cups fully down, there was just enough eye relief to allow the full field of view to be visible with spectacles.
In the distal end of the hinge there was a threaded tripod adaptor socket, so there is the potential to mount the binoculars if you wish.
However, because there is not much space between the binocular tubes, you will need to acquire an adaptor with a small-diameter knob.
How they perform
There was a wide crescent Moon in the sky when we gave the binoculars their first light.
We saw a small amount of glare around the Moon due to incomplete control of stray light within the binoculars, but this was tolerable.
There was also a small amount of lateral chromatic aberration (false colour) when the Moon was near the edge of the field of view, but this was not apparent near the centre.
Later on, Orion was well-risen in a dark, rain-washed sky, so we went first to magnitude +0.6 Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), which glowed a vibrant orange.
The Meissa Cluster (Collinder 69) is a good test of colour rendition, and revealed it to be very good indeed, enabling us to see subtle differences among star colours.
Next, we headed south to Orion’s Belt and the wonderful association of stars that is Collinder 70.
The initial impression was a delightful, uniformly sharp field of view, but critical inspection showed this was limited to the central 75% or so, outside which there is a slight softening of the image due to field curvature.
The Orion Nebula itself rewarded sustained observation, as increasingly more structure became visible.
M78 was easily visible as a small glowing patch of sky, but there was insufficient magnification to show the brighter patch.
We toured a few old favourites nearby.
The Pleiades were, of course, lovely and the three Messier clusters in Auriga, together with M35 in Gemini, were easy and obvious.
Three of Jupiter’s Galilean moons were visible, but Ganymede was less than 10 arcseconds from the planet and lost in its glare.
With these optics, in these sky conditions, even the Crab Nebula, M1 – normally elusive in 10x50s – was visible with direct vision.
These are very capable binoculars which are a pleasure to use.
One benefit of Hawke binoculars is that Hawke Optics offers replacement accessories and components such as cases, eye cups, lens caps and straps should you lose or damage yours.
The binoculars also have a lifetime warranty.
If you want to take a significant step up from entry-level binoculars, without the expense of a premium pair, these could be ideal for you.
Phase coatings
One of the characteristics of the Schmidt-Pechan roof prism optical system used in these binoculars is that, on its path through the prism, the light beam is split into two different rays.
These rays take two different paths and are then recombined before they exit the prism.
Because of the wave nature of light, a consequence of this is that the rays from the two different optical paths are out of phase when they recombine.
If this phase difference is not corrected, it results in an image that is degraded by reduced contrast, colour rendition and sharpness.
In common with all good-quality roof prism binoculars, the Hawke Endurance ED binoculars employ phase-correcting coatings on the appropriate surfaces, so that the recombining rays are in phase.
This means that the negative effects of splitting and recombining rays are obviated.
The consequence is the very good image contrast, excellent colour rendition and delightfully sharp image that you can enjoy with these binoculars.
Hawke Endurance ED 10x50 binoculars best features
Removable tethered objective caps
Hawke’s ‘stay-on’ objective lens covers fit extremely well and will not fall off the lenses. They attach to the body of the binoculars with barbed tags that fit securely into recesses under the lens housing. This gives you the option of removing them completely if you prefer not to have them tethered.
Fully multi-coated
To get the full benefit of the light gathered by the 50mm objective lenses, as much of it as possible needs to be transferred to your eyes by the optical system. The dielectric, anti-reflective multi-coatings ensure that the maximum amount of light is transmitted by the lens surfaces.
Waterproof and nitrogen-filled
Waterproofing prevents dew ingress, which could not only cause internal fogging of the optical components but also result in fungal growth that can etch optical surfaces, damaging them irreparably. The dry nitrogen purging means there is no internal oxygen to cause oxidative corrosion.
Neck strap
Binoculars like these will spend a lot of time hanging around your neck, so a good neck strap is a must. The 38mm-wide neoprene makes this one comfortable even with just a T-shirt, and there is sufficient extra length for the strap to fit over thick winter clothing.
Versatile protection
The zipped, semi-rigid clamshell case offers plenty of protection for storing and transporting your investment. There is also a fabric pouch that you could use to cover the binoculars when they are not in the case if you feel they need temporary protection from dust, for example.
Vital stats
- Price: £309
- Optics: Fully multi-coated
- Aperture: 50mm
- Magnification: 10x
- Prisms: Roof, BAK4, phase-corrected
- Angular field of view: 6°
- Focusing: Centre focus
- Eye relief: 17mm
- Interpupillary distance: 58–75mm
- Weight: 805g
- Supplier: First Light Optics
- Email: questions@firstlightoptics.com
- www.firstlightoptics.com
This review appeared in the February 2024 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine
