Dark Skies are Fading

we moved it there, and moved it back.
The Tal-120 in our chalet on our dark skies trip.

We recently lugged out TAL 120 to a dark skies site for a week.

Guess what, it was pretty cloudy all week, and we didn't get any observing done. 

In the end, on the final evening, I just got out the binoculars for a casual glance about between the band's of cloud passing overhead. 

It was enough to demonstrate that the site had "Dark Skies" potential, subject to the weather.

But many of the World's folks do get dark skies, and it is expected to get worse. Here is a study on just that subject:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/6/e1600377

Low-cost, high-value binoculars.

I have a set of cheap (as in 15 quid) 10x50 binoculars from Lidl. 

They are Bresser branded (Bresser is a subsiduary of Meade, whom are well known in astronomy) 

I've used them a few times for quick, casual viewing of the night sky.
10x is about as far as you want to go with hand held binoculars, otherwise the magnification makes it all a bit shaky when hand-held.

The Bresser binoculars actually have a tripod mounting in the front of the "hinge", but you'd have have to have a pretty tall tripod, or be sitting down, to use it.

Lidl currently have a pair of 8x60 binoculars for 25 quid that I would consider, but I don't really need 10x50 and 8x60 binoculars, given the amount of use they get (limited!).
 

Anyway, here is another review of the Lidl/Bresser 10x50 binoculars, and they are compared to a set of fancy "astronomical" binoculars too.
Well worth a read.

TAL -1 servicing and repair

http://www.astro-baby.com/TAL%20Telescope%20Rebuild/TAL%20Telescope%20Restoration.htm

The TAL-1 is basically the same as my TAL-120, and in the link above, a lady has stripped, serviced, repaired, and rebuilt one.

You want to know what a Russian telescope looks like, and how it is made - then just read her piece.