[mcdowella]

Does anybody know of particularly robust (or particularly fragile) scopes? I would like to stick one in a small rucksack with a collapsed tripod and I'm a bit worried about the amount of abuse the thing is going to take - especially round the eyepiece.

I got my hands on a cheap Bushnell Spacemaster and in a very short time either the thread on the eyepiece cover is going or the focus wheel is moving back, make it more and more difficult to fit on the eyepiece cover. I find this worrying - or do these always do this?

P.S. anybody know where I can get a 22x eyepiece for the Spacemaster? I'm trying to buy one over the web, but I've been hearing 'not long now' from the stockist for longer than I'd like.

[Steve Gross]

A.G.: I just recently sold my Spacemaster to a close friend, along with a 22x eyepiece. It looks like she will be using the 15-45x eyepiece, so she might be willing to part with the 22. I'll contact her and see if she's interested in sending it your way.

P.S. We're in the US, so we'd have to arrange for shipping, etc.

[Leif]

I have a Nikon 60mm RAII Spotting Scope with 20x eyepiece. It has heavy rubber armouring, an integral sun shade, and an integral lens cap attached to the lens shade. It also comes with a hard plastic eyepiece cover that screws over the eyepiece to protect it during transport. The eyepiece cover might fracture if the scope was dropped and it landed on it. Otherwise it looks very rugged. Of course how rugged it actually is depends on the internal construction. I have some cheap Nikon Egret 8x40 bins and these are so rugged it is not true. They have been thrown at the ground (don't ask) and are still aligned. So I suspect the scope will survive abuse.

This is a cheap scope but optically excellent. Bird Watching magazine rated it very highly (best score at the price). Optically it is not as good as the best but it is surprisingly good: sharp over a large part of the field, very contrasty and quite useable with spectacles.