SW80ED any good for birdwatching (1 Viewer)

Just wondering how good or not the Astroscope would be for Birding. If any good what eyepiece would you suggest.

The scope gives fantastic views with an eyepiece. A decent prism and something like the Baader 8-24mm clickstop zoom eyepiece would be good. That eyepiece is a very well regarded zoom and would give 25X to 75X mag on the scope. For fixed length eyepieces then anything will work well even down to budget plossl designs. I've got cheap £10 eyepieces up to Baader Hyperions at £100 and there's not a huge margin in viewing quality. Maybe look at ones with wider fields of view as basic plossls are quite narrow but they all give excellent views. Make sure the prism is an amici design and that will correct up/down and left/right orientation. Cheap ones may have some aberrations and use BAK7 glass so I'd make sure it's a decent one with BAK4 glass. I think the best one is the Baader (Zeiss) amici prism as it's made to Zeiss standards but it's very expensive. If you don't mind the image being reversed left/right then any mirror diagonal will work fine but it can often send you the wrong way when looking for the target. You can get very good views on a budget because the scope is so good already. I'd probably spend more on the prism and get maybe 3 fixed length eyepieces or if you just want one then get a zoom. There's quite a few zooms around the £50 range.

Paul.

I use a 45-degree amici prism from William Optics with the Baader 8-24 mm. The FOV is pretty narrow at 24 mm and the scope lacks the agility of a dedicated spotting scope, otherwise it's nice. I can just store the prism and eyepiece coupled together in a bag and change from photography to spotting at a moments notice. Sure is versatile.

Don't miss out stargazing with it as well, it is a telescope and wants to feel the stars. :t:

Oskar Moilanen said:

I use a 45-degree amici prism from William Optics with the Baader 8-24 mm.

Don't miss out stargazing with it as well, it is a telescope and wants to feel the stars. :t:

Click to expand...

Have the same setup. However I prefer my 30mm wide eyepiece (telescope service) for the wider field of view.

And for Stargazing, I do plenty of it with Rainbow (Rising)... ;-)

Thanks for the feedback guys, the Baader 8-24 is a bit more than I wanted to spent at this stage so I will hold off for the time being. Still trying to sort out using a tc with the SW80 at the moment.

I saw your post about the macro tubes Roy. I guess it's pot luck with those cheaper ones as to how well they have been made and how well the bayonet fitting locks in. I've got a Canon and a Pentax set and both fit very well but I've heard of others who weren't so lucky. You could look out for a cheap teleconverter on ebay and strip out the insides to leave a hollow tube. I've done that with a few and they are a good alternative. There's a couple of Kenko ones on ebay at the moment going cheap.

Paul.

Paul Corfield said:

I saw your post about the macro tubes Roy. I guess it's pot luck with those cheaper ones as to how well they have been made and how well the bayonet fitting locks in. I've got a Canon and a Pentax set and both fit very well but I've heard of others who weren't so lucky. You could look out for a cheap teleconverter on ebay and strip out the insides to leave a hollow tube. I've done that with a few and they are a good alternative. There's a couple of Kenko ones on ebay at the moment going cheap.

Paul.

Click to expand...

Thanks Paul, I guess stripping a better quality AF tube is going to be the best way forward. I have search all over the web for other MF tubes but although they vary a lot in price they all seem to be to same make from the pics.