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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Thoughts about first scope (1 Viewer)

I've read through all the comments and been going over the options in my head the last couple of days.
I've narrowed it down and feel I go two routes right now;

Swarovski ATS65HD + 25-50xW
Expensive, solid, superb optics.
Body and ocular 1400 grams.
Knowing that I probably won't need to upgrade ever again.

Opticron MM4 60ED + SDLv2 (15-45x)
Alot cheaper alternative.
Uncertain about optical quality.
Mag starting at 15 compared to 25.
Body and ocular 1000 grams, 400 grams lighter than the Swaro.
Could maybe be used with an ever lighter head and tripod.

Question is how much one actually loses in optical quality.
Build and optical quality will obviously be better in the Swaro. But enough to justify the much higher price?
I read a review on the MM4 60 and one comment about how its optical quality wasn't too far off from the ATS65 etc.

If only there were serious optics shops nearby so one could compare them side by side.

Unrelated: Was out on a walk in the nearby wetlands and saw 3 western marsh harriers soar right next to eachother in the warm winds. Only problem they were just a bit too far away for 8x42. Really wished I already got a scope right there and then ;)
Regarding tripods:
Even with a small 50mm ED50 I find that a sturdy tripod is quite useful. I tried lighter tripods but the slightest breeze quickly degraded the view. I now use Manfrotto 3021 (or equivalent) and 128 heads for 50mm, 82mm and 88mm scopes. We also hang our day packs on the column adjustment, something that really dampens tremors in a hurry. Calm weather is never a problem but we experience a lot of wind and wind can destroy a scope image if its affects aren't mitigated. A relatively heavy tripod along with a dampener does the job for us.

Yes, I tried tripods costing four times my current setup only to find they, too, vibrated in the wind. I don't pack the tripod for miles at a time so the inconveniences of weight and size are not much of an issue. We're going to Nova Scotia in a few weeks and I'll pack two tripods, an ED50 and an 88mm Kowa. Since we have two long-term stays with great ocean views I may also pack a binocular mount (monopod with tripod and bin attachments).

Good luck!
 
Regarding tripods:
Even with a small 50mm ED50 I find that a sturdy tripod is quite useful. I tried lighter tripods but the slightest breeze quickly degraded the view. I now use Manfrotto 3021 (or equivalent) and 128 heads for 50mm, 82mm and 88mm scopes. We also hang our day packs on the column adjustment,

Yes, I tried tripods costing four times my current setup only to find they, too, vibrated in the wind.

Good info! "A scope is only as good as its tripod"
I was planning on getting the Manfrotto 700RC2 head and MT290XTC3 tripod if I go with the slightly lighter, more compact, MM4.
If the Swaro it would be a 128RC or maybe still 700RC and heavier tripod.

Both good combos?
 
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upettersson, post 22,
As yet other compact solutions for small scopes were not mentioned and they may of interest.
If you want to use them for hiking and cano-ing purposes a compact 50 mm Celestron scope may be a good choice (very compact and lightweight).
Another option might be a draw tube telescope as they are made by Optolyth, Meopta and Swarovski. The most compact ones are probably made by Optolyth. you can read some test reports of this type of telescopes on the WEB-site of House of Outdoor, look under "Verrekijkers"and "verrekijkers testen en vergelijken'. The reports are in Dutch but the tables and graphs will be understandable also by Swedisch nationals I think.
I have very good experience with compact draw tube telescopes when hiking and mountain walking.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
Mirador made good draw tube telescopes, also some other high quality German makes.

Also Zeiss 30x60 Maksutov spotter. Rather underpowered in my opinion, as it can take much higher magnification.
Similar Soviet versions and the Mirador 30x-120x70 Maksutov.
All compact.
 
Good info! "A scope is only as good as its tripod"
I was planning on getting the Manfrotto 700RC2 head and MT290XTC3 tripod if I go with the slightly lighter, more compact, MM4.
If the Swaro it would be a 128RC or maybe still 700RC and heavier tripod.

Both good combos?

I owned the 700RC2, I'm sorry to say, but can't recommend it, probably the worst video head I ever tried. Weak, unstable and the small manfrotto plates are worthless, as they always tend to loosen up and might even damage the scope threads. Swaro ATS65 foot will fit in it without plate though. But the 700RC2 won't admit adjusting scope back or forward for better balance. 128RC is larger but have similar bugs.

Benro S2 might be a better alternative, uses Arca plates which are better. Though it's not super stable either, but it's light, 400 grams. I use it in my lightest setup with a 1.5 kg carbon tripod.

Benro S4 is more stable but also heavier. I use it when I want to have more stability.

Manfrotto 400AH is another light head, looks better than the 700RC, but I haven't tried it.

Sirui is also worth checking out. VA-5 and VH-10 for example.

Small video heads will always be a compromise and it's up to the user to find out what works for him/here in the current conditions and equipment.
 
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Also Zeiss 30x60 Maksutov spotter. Rather underpowered in my opinion, as it can take much higher magnification.
.

So very interesting!
I owned one, but was not blown away by the performance, so I sold it.
Maybe it was a lemon or just needed adjustment?
 
I have very good experience with compact draw tube telescopes when hiking and mountain walking.
Gijs van Ginkel

I have thought about a draw tube for walks. Looked at the Zeiss Dialyt Spotter (though it's not a draw tube), 18X-45X, 65 mm, bigger would probably be to heavy. But the reports on CA put me off a bit. The meoptas don't have ED glass either from what I understand?
 
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Vespobuteo, post 27,
The Meopta TGA 75 is a very nice draw tube telescope for a fair price (body 849 euro) and three interchangeable eyepieces: 30xWA, with or without range finding reticle and a 20-60x zoom eyepiece. I did not find information about ED glas, but CA was not disturbing for my eyes at least. Weight with zoom eyepiece is approx. 1500 gr. Length without eyepiece collapsed 25 cm. A test is on the WEB-site of House of Outdoor.
Gijs van Ginkel
 
So very interesting!
I owned one, but was not blown away by the performance, so I sold it.
Maybe it was a lemon or just needed adjustment?

Hi,

the Zeiss 30x60 is a Gregory and not a Maksutov-Cassegrain - as can be seen by an upright image despite the absence of porro/roof prisms and also by the length of the body - too long for either SC or Mak...

And yes, when these are knocked out of collimation the image is not so great. Unfortunately I don't know if there are any user accessible collimation screws...

Joachim
 
Vespobuteo, post 27,
The Meopta TGA 75 is a very nice draw tube telescope for a fair price (body 849 euro) and three interchangeable eyepieces: 30xWA, with or without range finding reticle and a 20-60x zoom eyepiece. I did not find information about ED glas, but CA was not disturbing for my eyes at least. Weight with zoom eyepiece is approx. 1500 gr. Length without eyepiece collapsed 25 cm. A test is on the WEB-site of House of Outdoor.
Gijs van Ginkel

Thanks, interesting, and the PDF was small enough for Google translate, :)
Perhaps the Zeiss might be ok concerning CA after all.
Price diff compared to Mepta is not that significant.
Down side with the Zeiss is that it's not that compact, weight is ok, but as it's not a draw-tube type, it will probably mean less dust inside etc. in the long run.
 
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Hi,

the Zeiss 30x60 is a Gregory and not a Maksutov-Cassegrain - as can be seen by an upright image despite the absence of porro/roof prisms and also by the length of the body - too long for either SC or Mak...

And yes, when these are knocked out of collimation the image is not so great. Unfortunately I don't know if there are any user accessible collimation screws...

Joachim

Iirc, the problem was that the image was soft. I did not know any actual tests to try to diagnose possible maladjustments and did not try any fixes.
The instrument is rubber armored, with an electric focusing mechanism. If there are adjustment screws, they were hidden under the rubber. :(

Gregory is actually a handy design, nicely portable and lightweight. Wonder why it has not been more widely used for spotting scopes. Is there a robustness issue?
 
Iirc, the problem was that the image was soft. I did not know any actual tests to try to diagnose possible maladjustments and did not try any fixes.
The instrument is rubber armored, with an electric focusing mechanism. If there are adjustment screws, they were hidden under the rubber. :(

Gregory is actually a handy design, nicely portable and lightweight. Wonder why it has not been more widely used for spotting scopes. Is there a robustness issue?

Hi,

you could have done a star test and maybe taken pictures and then either done some reading (online or Harold R. Suiter: Star testing astronomical telescopes) to evaluate it or just asked for help in the reflector forum at cloudynights...

The main mirror in a reflector telescope is a quite heavy piece of glass which gets knocked out of position even easier than the usual prisms in refracting spotters - also there is the central obstruction from the secondary mirror which eats up a bit of effective aperture and also limits resolution even in a perfect instrument.

The usual problem of how to mount the secondary has been solved by Zeiss with an optical window in front of the tube - elegant but not cheap.

Joachim
 
Hi,

you could have done a star test and maybe taken pictures and then either done some reading (online or Harold R. Suiter: Star testing astronomical telescopes) to evaluate it or just asked for help in the reflector forum at cloudynights...

The main mirror in a reflector telescope is a quite heavy piece of glass which gets knocked out of position even easier than the usual prisms in refracting spotters - also there is the central obstruction from the secondary mirror which eats up a bit of effective aperture and also limits resolution even in a perfect instrument.

The usual problem of how to mount the secondary has been solved by Zeiss with an optical window in front of the tube - elegant but not cheap.

Joachim

Sadly this was in the pre internet days, when Prodigy was the latest thing...
The user manual was pretty much all the help available other than going to the library and searching through the catalogs.
It is wonderful how much more accessible information has become thanks to the web.
 
My Zeiss 30x60 gives good star images.
But I don't have the electric drive, which was detachable.
The interesting thing about the drive is I think it ran on 4 batteries, but 3 would give half speed.

I would not try to access collimation screws.

Generally mirror scopes are compact, but most are not waterproof.

The military use them for long distance work.
I don't know if they ever use birdwatcher's spotting scopes.
Small refracting spotters are used for rifle target practice.

I am at home using any type of scope, but for long distance views the colour errors of refractors are nearly absent with the mirror scopes.
The resolution of a mirror scope is empirically found by deducting the secondary mirror diameter from the main mirror. I.e a 6 inch mirror scope with a 25% obstruction delivers the resolution of a very good 4.5 inch refractor.
Obstructions above 25% cause contrast reductions.

Planetary Newtonians, say 10 inch f/9 have obstructions as small as 1 inch across or slightly larger.
There are also unobstructed mirror scopes, but these are difficult to make well.

Mirror scopes usually take longer to temperature stabilise than refractors, although fast refractors seem to be worse than long focus refractors.
 
Sadly this was in the pre internet days, when Prodigy was the latest thing...

I still remember the time when I installed NCSA Mosaic in the computing pool sometime in spring 1993... was hell of a compile job and when finished there was not a lot to see...
So I sent out an announcement and was off to usenet, which was started in 1979 and was what web forums are today. The equivalent of birdforum on usenet would have been uk.rec.birdwatching...

https://sbpoley.home.xs4all.nl/ukrb/index.html

And then there was gopherspace... the hot thing in the days and kind of a text based www - and of course thousands of mailing lists (working just like today) and ftp hosts.

Joachim
 
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Update on my hunt for a scope

I've learnt more about spotting scopes, and optics in general, in the last week than I ever could have imagined.
Mostly thanks to all of you rugged birders with such a strong passion and knowledge about the tools.

I've decided to hold off until the Kowa 553 comes out and also come to the conclusion I really need to visit a good optics store where you can try them all out to really know what would fit me and my needs.

I've also come to realize how much more immersive, handy and useful a binocular really is. Maybe my first step should be to get a really good binocular instead. 8x42 Victory SF T*? (wallet already screaming).

A parallell to hiking and going out in nature struck me; the knife and the axe.
You always bring a good knife, have it on you at all times and it can be used for everything.
Even though the axe is such an awesome tool when you really need it, and can double as a knife in many cases, you're really hesitant to bring it with you because of the weight and size.

Thanks again for all replies and shared wisdom.
I'll update once my mind has settled and I've seen that little Kowa |:$|
 
Hi,

ok, now we're taking a U-turn... so if you really want to upgrade bins, maybe make a thread in the bino forum...

Joachim
 
I just realized I had missed the big thread about the upcoming Kowa 553 scope and how it looks like it turns out not that great in the end. The Kowa was the thing I was postponing my decisions on.

I ranted about weight vs use in my last post, and how maybe I should upgrade my current Nikon 8x42 binoculars, but there's no replacing a good "hatchet" in the end. Optics is difficult if you aren't into it. It must take years to follow all the manufacturers, releases and specs. A real visual art.

I narrowed it down to the Opticron MM4 60ED+SDLv2 (15-45x) and ATS65HD+25-50xW.

Price and weight/size decided it for me and I just ordered the Opticron MM4 with a good set of head and tripod, for what I find, travel friendly use and weight.

Now I'll get to try it out just in time for my summer expedition; canoeing around Grövelsjön and climbing up Storvätteshågna for more than a week. As soon as I open my tent, no Lagopus muta, Vulpes lagopus, Bubo scandiacus, Strix nebulosa or Rangifer tarandus (among others) can escape me now :)

One thing I'm worried about is if I get a "lemon" and me being new to spotting scopes not being experienced enough to notice the flaws. I'd really appreciate some advice on easy tests to perform. I do have 20/20 vision, or atleast the military review told me, so I should be off to a good start :)
 
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