spotting scopes?

[RichM]

If it was your money, which of these would you buy?

Burris 20-60x80 Landmark Spotter (http://www.riflescopes.com/products/300123/burris_20-60x80_landmark_spotter.htm)

Bushnell 20-60x65 Trophy Spotting (http://www.riflescopes.com/products/782065/bushnell_20-60x65_trophy_spotting_scope.htm)

Celestron 20-60x Ultima 80 angled viewing 80mm (http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Christophers/category_name/6KBA9F8JS8L88PS948KSF174T4/product_id/CU80)

They are all very similar in the specification but I'm wondering who might have the better glass quality. Seems like the odds are they are all made at the same factory in china. Personally I'm leaning towards the Celestron, angled eye peice and 80mm objective.

[bigant]

Non of the above! I would buy this one...Konus (http://www.jarheadtop.com/KONUS.htm)

[tac-40]

Ditto on what bigant said. Konus is what everybody is talking about now-a-days. The only downside of them is they aren't waterproofed, so you can't use them in the rain. If you shop around, you can find them from about $165 and up. They also have a 100mm one, but that sucker is huge.

[W.E.G.]

If Jim Owens says they are good, you can take that advice to the bank.

[Stranger]

So, Jim says the only issue with the Konus scope is the eye relief and mentions something about safety glasses on or off with regards to the FOV. I wear prescription glasses and taking them off isn't an option. Is the Konus going to be harder for me to use?

Oh, and they have them at opticsplanet for $170 shipped. Of course, that isn't nearly as good as the deal Jim has set up with the rental deal. Unfortunately, with my luck I would scratch one of the lenses the first week I had it. Just ask my optometrist. :biggrin:

[bigant]

Originally posted by Stranger
So, Jim says the only issue with the Konus scope is the eye relief and mentions something about safety glasses on or off with regards to the FOV. I wear prescription glasses and taking them off isn't an option. Is the Konus going to be harder for me to use?

Oh, and they have them at opticsplanet for $170 shipped. Of course, that isn't nearly as good as the deal Jim has set up with the rental deal. Unfortunately, with my luck I would scratch one of the lenses the first week I had it. Just ask my optometrist. :biggrin:

You will have a problem with all spotting scopes if you have glass's or eye protection if the spotting scope is not equiped with a LER eye piece. I believe only the Pricey Spotting Scopes have the LER's....Just a fyi, I can get 2 of the Konus Spotting scopes, so I might be able to help out in the price, but I wont be able to compete with Jim's deal

Ant

[mj2evans]

I bought the 80mm Konus after reading about it on Jarhead. Let me say Jim's packing left something to be desired. I had to send the eyepiece to Konus for repair of a lens that popped lose. My father in law is in the optics business and was surprised the lens was not pined in (only glue). Bottom line is that Konus fixed it and it is a good value for the money. If you want max field of view you need to remove your glasses (I do). LER spotting scopes would likely cost three times the Konus and I just couldn't part with the money for a Kowa.

[W.E.G.]

Do the Konus have a replaceable eyepiece?

Does anybody know whether the eyepieces at
http://www.opticsplanet.net/kowa-interchangeable-eyepieces-for-82mm-spotting-scopes.html
will fit a Konus scope?

[W.E.G.]

Or maybe one of these?

(note prices are in English pounds)
http://www.acecameras.co.uk/asp/web/recorprod/1/product/11024/cat/1360/ph/cat/keywords//recor/1/SearchFor//PT_ID/1/product.asp

[W.E.G.]

Or maybe its not a big enough issue to care

Jim says:

"Now for the differences



The Kowa 821M has a 27 Power LER or Long Eye Relief eyepiece. This means you can wear shooting glasses and get your full field of view.



The KONUS has a fixed 20-60X-zoom eyepiece. When you look through the eyepiece with out glasses you can see your target and two targets to both the right and left of yours at 600 yards. With glasses, you can see your target and one target both the right and left of yours at 600 yards."





As far as scratching your shooting glasses, you don't need to worry much about whether you scratch your lens on your shooting glasses, since you should be scoping with your NON-DOMINANT eye anyway.

...and if you wear a proper spaz-strap, you shouldn't be bonking your shooting glasses very hard against the spotting scope anyway.

[RichM]

I bought the Burris 20-60x80, the scope says it has an Long Eye Relief piece. And that was one of the prime deal makers. Since I almost always have my sun or perscription glasses at the range and don't want to be taking them on and off all the time.
I have not been to the range with it yet. But I have pointed it at the moon and Jupiter and am fairly satisfied with the scope so far.
Hopefully I'll remember to make an update when I get it out to the range.

W.E.G, "scoping with your NON-DOMINANT eye"?
Are you saying you should use the spotting scope with the non-dominant eye or scoping the rifle with your non-dominant eye?
I'm a right handed/right eye dominant person and a little confused after reading that part.

[Survey Punk]

What he means, I think, is you sight (rifle sight) with your dominent eye and scope (spotting scope) with the other. This is what I do anyway.
Check out the placement of the scope in this picture. http://www.zediker.com/books/rifleshooter/rs_basics.html Head movement is minimal between shooting and spotting using the right eye for shooting and the left for spotting.

JB

[W.E.G.]

Originally posted by Survey Punk
What he means, I think, is you sight (rifle sight) with your dominent eye and scope (spotting scope) with the other. This is what I do anyway.
Check out the placement of the scope in this picture. http://www.zediker.com/books/rifleshooter/rs_basics.html Head movement is minimal between shooting and spotting using the right eye for shooting and the left for spotting.

JB

Yeah. That's right.

Speaking of distractions while shooting, why is it I never have a water baloon when I really need one. :devil:

[Survey Punk]

You fling a water baloon at THAT crowd you're on your own! :uhoh:

On the other hand, if it's been in the 'fridge overnight they might appreciate it.

JB

[gordo63]

The Konus scope is good "for the money". The eye relief is short and the scope is darker than the better quality ones. When I ordered mine, the first two I got were damaged and had to be returned. Jim Owens was top notch in getting me new ones but it was still frustrating. I bought mine for my son who is now also shooting HP. It has made one trip to Perry and about a half dozen matches so far without any problems.

[RichM]

Sigh, I took the burris out this weekend. I had a hard time seeing 30 caliber holes on paper at 200 yards. I was using Champion precision sighting in targets, an offwhite paper. But then again the conditions were not ideal, 80 to 85 Fahrenheit tons of mirage and a 15 mph headwind causing a lot of vibration on the tripod I have.

Or, I need to see the opthamologist.

I'm hoping it will do better when conditions are better and I can get a better tripod for it.

[16R40]

I use a SIBIR OPTICS YUKON............20-50 power, very compact and built like a T-34 tank....under 100 bucks


http://www.yukonoptics.de/bilder/main-1.jpg

[ironman0311]

NcStar scopes (Rifle and spotting) are surprisingly clear for cheap (< $200) scopes if you are on a budget.


http://www.usaoptics.net/ncstspsc.html

[Dakota FAL]

For the money the Celestron is a much better buy and will offer much better performance.

The problem with most spotting scopes is that they use achromatic lenses and the (relatively) inexpensive ones really push the meaning of the term as the "color correction" is usually very poor.

The problem with lenses is that they bend light, and light at different frequencies (colors) comes to different points of focus and this seriously limits the resolution that can be achieved.

Poor correction also results in abberation of the color, or false color, that can be very noticeable under some circumstances - mostly during astronomical uses.

If you spend really big bucks you can get a scope with apochromatic lenses that do not suffer from these color or focus issues, but "big bucks" means just that with apochromatic (APO) lensed scopes of the same aperature selling for about 5 to 10 times the price of their achromatic counterparts depending on aperature size.

The bonded crown and flint glass elements used in the Celestron are however decent by achromatic standards. In addition, all other things being equal, there is no substitute for larger aperture as the area (and light gathering ability) of the objective lens increases dramatically.

This extra light also goes a long way toward increasing resolution and resolution itself is mathematically limited by aperature diameter. Larger is definitely better and I'd take an 80mm scope over a 60mm scope any day.

Finally, the negative effects on focus with an achromatic scope can be substantially reduced with the use of a proper filter that will exclude certain wavelenghts and the separate eyepiece on the Celestron allows the use of a correcting filter where the others will not. This will allow a sharper image and increased resolution.

You may also find, with any scope, that you get better resolution at lower magnification as once you exceed the mathematical limits of the aperature, more magnification just increases distortion (reducing resolution) and increases the focal ratio (limiting low light effectiveness.) Also, variable power eyepieces tend to reduce resolution due to the increased loss and dispersion of light that occurs due to the greater number of elements with (usually) less than perfect alignment.

But none the less everyone sells variable power spotting scopes because customers are convinced they need them. They also seem to think more is better in terms of magnification even though 40x or 60x exceeds the practical and theoretical limits of a 60mm scope, hurts resolution and is all but unusable in anything other than very bright light. It's a case where you spend more and get a lot less in terms of resolution - which is what really counts when spotting bullet holes.

The Celestron should be able to accommodate standard 1.25" astronomical eyepieces from a variety of companies and a high quality fixed power eyepiece should provide excellent resolution compared to any of the above mentioned scopes.

In my experience 20 power is adequate in a quality spotting scope and the larger exit pupil makes for much more comfortable viewing. You could achieve 19x magnification from a scope like the Celestron with an 480mm focal lenght using a reasonably large 25 mm eyepiece (that has 6 times the exit pupil diameter as the variable eyepiece that is supplied) You will be amazed at how much brighter the image appears and with how much more you see on the target even though the target itself appears smaller than it would at 60x with the less efficient variable power eyepiece.

Kowa's 660 series scopes are very good spotting scopes despite their 66mm diameter. They use high quality flourite lenses that have very good color correction. They also (surprise, surprise) use a straight 20x eyepiece which again helps resolution compared to the variable power eyepieces sold with most other lower quality spotting scopes. But they also cost around $600-$650.

Another option if size is not an issue (about 12" long 4" in diameter and 4 lbs in weight) is a maksutov-cassegrain design that uses a primary and secondary reflecting mirror in adddition to an objective correcting lens to get a long focal lenght and larger aperture in a small package. For example a 90mm maksutov cassegrain will have a 1250mm focal lenght which in turn allows the use of a large and very comfortable to use 40mm eyepiece to achieve 36x magnification and would give a very usable 50x magnification with a 25mm eyepiece.

A 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain would cost about $250 with shipping from Orion. For another pound of weight and another inch in diameter you could get a 102mm Maksutov-Cassegrain for around $300. The extra aperature is beneficial as, with any Maksutov, Maksutov-Cassegrain, Cassegrain or even Newtonian design, the central obstruction caused by the secondary mirror reduces resolution compared to a traditional refractor of similar aperture so the larger aperature helps compensate for that effect. Addionally however the reflecting nature of the design avoids the false color and multiple focal point issues that hinder an achromatic refracting scope so all in all a Maksutov Cassegrain tends to deliver images that are nearly as sharp as an achromatic refractor and a small increase in aperature usually recaptures any lost resolution. The cost of the larger aperture is the larger size and weight of the scope and the need for a more stable tripod that is not always ammenable to the prone position.

If you are wanting something to use on the rifle range or other situation where extreme portability and armour protection is not needed, these are designs to seriously consider.

http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=367&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=4&iSubCat=11&iProductID=367

http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=370&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=4&iSubCat=11&iProductID=370

[Blackmore]

Do stay away from Konus' Maksutov-Cassegrain design scope that SG sells for about $80. Bought one because of good luck with my 15-45x65mm Konus (smaller version of the Jim Owens one) but it didn't hold a candle to that one so I returned it.

I had a chance to do a side by side with the Burris 15-45x60mm and the Konus 15-45x65mm. The Konus was brighter (65mm vs 60mm) and sharper.

[Rotor]

Dakota FAL
In reference to Celestron spotters. Are you refering to the Ultima series?

Can you offer an opinion about the ED glass hype vs the std. 80mm?


JR

[Dakota FAL]

Yes, the Ultima scope the person who initiated the thread referred to.

ED (extreme low dispersion) glass lenses are referred to as Apochromatic lenses (APO) as they demonstrate less chromatic abberation than achromatic lenses. Achromatic lenes tend to display both more false color and have more difficulty forming as sharp an image as the different wave lenghts of light passing through the lens focus at different points.

Whether APO optics are worth the money depends on the user. Some people "see" and are bothered more by false color than others, but that usually only appies to astonomy buffs who use the scopes for astronomical uses.

I bought a 6" achromatic refractor as I was not, at the time, overly concerned with false color for planetary viewing as I already had a 6" reflector for wide field deep sky viewing (and reflectors, since they use mirrors, have no problems with false color/chromatic abberation - but on the other hand usually have less resolution because of the central obstruction due to the secondary mirror.) After a few years though I seem to be getting pickier and am thinking that spending $5000 on APO optics in a larger astronomical refractor is not as insane as it sounded initially when I spent $700 on the achromatic optics.

In a smaller refractor like an 80mm spotting scope, however I think the difference is less dramatic as you are viewing in daylight where you would not get the same false color halo effect you can get when viewing a bright object like Jupiter or Saturn or the moon against a dark sky and where generally speaking the resolution will be limited by the diameter of the objective lens rather than by the any loss of focus due to chromatic abberation.

It also matters whether you shoot .223 or .308 and at what ranges. If you can see the holes at whatever range you need to, you have enough scope for the job and more is a waste of money.

Even an inexpensive scope will generally allow you to see .308 holes at 100 yards while .223 holes often need a bit more quality as do longer ranges.

In short, in an 80mm spotting scope, I don't think it is worth the money for ED/APO lenses given what you can accomplish with a quality achromatic spotting scope using a good quality flint/crown glass lens.

[Rotor]

Dakota FAL

That has got to be the most helpful optics post I have ever read. As long as you sharing I'll keep asking. I am primarily interested in a spotter for high power shooting 223 and .30 cal at 200 yards ( maybe beyond )

The Celestron 80mm sounds like a value for sure. Maybe even the 100mm for more headroom.

Like most, I have "under bought" in the past and am trying to learn from my mistakes. I can't yet make the jump to $700.00 glass.

Do the Nikon Sky & Earth or ProStaff represent the next rung up from the Celestron Ultima?


JR