The BINTEL 2024 Wrap Up

2024 was a very special year for BINTEL

First of all, we celebrated 40 years since the shop first opened in 1984 in the Wynyard Station arcade. It’s been an amazing journey and can only thank our customers, suppliers and the many others who’ve helped us get this far.

The BINTEL Sydney store 40 years ago

2024 also saw the roll out of new products continue, and along with a few long term favourites, made this year a stand out for how we could help our customers expand their interests in astronomy, bird watching, nature discovery and more.

Here’s BINTEL’s “wrap” for 2024*

Smart Telescopes

We’ve written a lot about Smart Telescopes over the last few years, and with good reason. These all-in-one telescope, mount, camera and control systems are changing with the way astronomers of all levels of expertise view and photograph the night sky.

There were three major Smart Telescope updates during 2024 and all of them are worth a mention here.

Celestron Origin Intelligent Home Observatory

This new telescope was released by Celestron at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in January of this year. It’s a high end smart telescope and the result of years of R&D by Celestron. Definitely a long term project from the world's largest telescope manufacturer.

Celestron Origin

We’ve now sold dozens of these Celestron Origin gizmos, with excellent feedback from our customers along the way. I know my eyes glaze over whenever something is described as a “game changer”, but this new Celestron Smart Telescope is exactly that.

Find out more here.

There’s been several sub-$1000 Smart Telescopes available to astronomy enthusiasts for the last couple of years. The popular DWARF II morphed into the new DWARF 3, which is a major hardware and software upgrade for around the same price while ZWO introduced their new Seestar S30 which is selling for only just $649.

ZWO Seestar S30 Smart Telescope

 We were also impressed that ZWO met their promised mid to late December delivery target for this new little Smart Telescope and we were able to dispatch some to our customers before the end of 2024.

The DWARF 3 Smart Telescope

What 2025 will bring in terms of Smart Telescopes is looking exciting. I’d say that the few years has probably seen more astro photos taken with these new telescopes than were taken in the last two decades with more traditional astrophotography rigs.

Binoculars

ZEISS were the stand out binoculars at BINTEL for 2024.

Their ZEISS Terra ED line up are well priced for those after an introduction to quality binoculars without the high price tags and this has seen many become ZEISS owners over the last 12 months.

ZEISS Terra ED 8x42 Binoculars

For more serious birdwatchers, the ZEISS SFL binos have been a revelation. Bright and crisp images combined with lightweight bodies make a perfect combo when you’re out in the field.

ZEISS SFL 8x40 Binoculars

2024 also saw the release of the new ZEISS Conquest HDX binoculars. Mid-priced with a new optics and weather proofing have made them popular with those after a genuine all-around set of optics.

ZEISS HDX 10x42 Binoculars

The Kite Optics APC Stabilized 14x50 ED lifted the bar for image stabilised binos. A combination of new image stabilising tech, large ED (Extra Dispersion) quality glass and built-in Lithium-Ion battery that will last an entire season make these Kite binos a must have for long range viewing.

Kite ED 18x50 Image Stabilised

Worth a big mention too has been Gerber binoculars. These are possibly some of the best value products we have at BINTEL. Great views for the money!

2024 - Year of the spotting scope?

We’ve always been a destination for anyone with a decent view they’d like to see up close. This year we seem to have had a stream of people calling and visiting us who are living near the water or with scenery to explore. The BINTEL spotting scope range - small telescopes optimised for going beyond what binoculars can achieve - has been expanding this year. Apart from evergreen offering from Celestron, Nikon and Swarovski, we’ve welcomed new spotting scopes from Kowa, ZEISS and Pentax to our shop.

The KOWA TSN-88 Spotting Scope

Best optics of the year?

I’m a bit torn on this one! Two remarkable spotting scopes arrived at BINTEL this year. The KOWA TSN-88 with its crystal fluorite lens has jewel-like optics and the carbon fibre BORG 90FL is the Swiss army knife of small telescopes that lets you configure it for anything from birdwatching to astro imaging.

BORG 90FL Telescope Set CR (Carbon Tube)

Telescope Mounts

New and upgraded Harmonic Drive mounts continue to arrive at BINTEL. One that impressed us is the updated ZWO AM5N mount. This added to the popular AM5 mount a swag of new features and capabilities as bumping up the load capacity.

ZWO AM5N Harmonic Drive Mount

Dobs are back! (Actually, they never went away….)

While electronic telescopes of various kinds grab a lot of attention, there’s nothing like the simple joy of observing the night sky with your eyes through a decent sized telescope. We’ve seen plenty of new telescope owners opting for the handy Celestron StarSense Explorer tabletop Dobsonians this year. The saxon full-sized Dobsonian telescopes were especially popular for Christmas, and we expect this to continue into 2025.

saxon 8" Dobsonian Telescope 

Books

Astronomy 2025 is the last edition of our favourite star gazing annual. This has been a standard resource that has informed and entertained astronomers in Australia and across the world since the early 1990s. While the 2025 production is the final edition from the team at Quasar Publishing, it's no doubt one of their best effort. Everyone here at BINTEL would like Quasar for the wonderful publication that's served our community over the decades.

Events

The total Solar Eclipse that crossed the USA on the 8th of April 2024 saw a vast number of people travel to the eclipse's path to experience this rare display of our nearest star, the Sun. 

The April 2024 Solar Eclipse as seen from Texas, USA.

It was also a timely reminder that there will a Total Solar Eclipse in Australia in July 2028 - and it will cross directly over BINTEL in Sydney!

SpaceX launched its BIG rocket. The largest rocket ever built, Starship, flew a number of times in 2024, with the next flight due in January 2025. Each flight saw the reliability and capabilities increase with each launch including the "chopsticks" capture of the main booster. 

Starship 5 launch from the SpaceX facility

Locally, Gilmour Space received the go ahead for the first permit for an orbital launch from the Australian mainland from their facility in northern Queensland. 

Other highlight space missions were the launch of the Europa Clipper to explorer the suitability of one of Jupiter's large moons and the close encounter of the Parker Solar Probe as dived close to the Sun over Christmas. The NASA spacecraft survived and first results are due in the coming days.

Happy New Year!

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL

*2024 Wrap? Sounds like a plan. I wonder if anyone else does that?