Picking up on a couple of points in John’s post
I went looking for information on the 30x eyepiece, and found it in the 2005 catalogue
As I couldn’t reduce the dimensions of the table sufficiently to load as a JPEG, while retaining enough detail, I’ve loaded it as a PDF
And since I went the PDF route, I’ve also included the main page about the ATS/STS telescopes
Interestingly, the eyepieces produce the same magnification whether used on the CTS draw tube or the fixed body models, as all the telescopes have the same 460 mm focal length
And the S designation indicates that they are the later waterproof versions
In relation to ATS/STS and ATM/STM history and choices
Apart from cosmetic changes, the only known difference is the use of magnesium alloy rather than aluminium alloy for the main body shell,
and of course lens coatings would have been progressively updated as is Swarovski’s standard practice
All models are numbered in the same sequence, with the same prefix:
- the original ATS/STS series was from 2002 to 2009 (the earliest I’ve observed is #U7207 06132, with numbering having started at 6k; and the last #U7923 85182)
- the ATM/STM series was from 2009 to 2012 (observed from #U7904 82084 to #U8215 23737)
- then the ATS/STS series recommenced in late 2011 (first observed #U8147 20999)
The reason for the change from M back to S seems to have been to provide greater differentiation between the conventional ATS/STS line and the new modular ATX/STX line introduced in 2012,
both in relation to features and price
John
p.s. for those interested, the full 2005 Hunting catalogue can still be found here. It's 7.4 MB, and there is a choice of English, German and Russian language versions
http://www.hoferwaffen.com/images/optics/