ATX or BTX (1 Viewer)

[Wayne_glossop]

Hi All,
I currently have the ATX 85, and yesterday I looked through a BTX 115 and was really impressed with the eyepiece the relief and ease of use was amazing, putting the 115 objective aside, has anyone gone from the ATX/STX to the BTX but still using the 85mm objective. I currently use my ATX 85 for all round birding the UK. Including picking birds out in bushes to seawatchinhg. Additionally I have jusy aquired given a 1.7ME Extender, but not tried it on my ATX yet. Anu advice greatly appreciated Thanks in advance

 

[Mike Crawley]

With such a big decision I would be tempted to visit any optics shop and have a really good look.
Phone round and see who has the stuff in stock and make an appointment and do a thorough test. Worth driving for a few hours for such an upgrade

good luck

 

[Wayne_glossop]

With such a big decision I would be tempted to visit any optics shop and have a really good look.
Phone round and see who has the stuff in stock and make an appointment and do a thorough test. Worth driving for a few hours for such an upgrade

good luck

Thanks Mike, I have been happy with the ATX but I feel the BTX was so much nicer on the eyes and allowed better details to be picked up on flying birds, but It would need to work as an all round scope including picking birds up on bushes and scanning bushes as well.
I'm meeting a mate who has the BTX tomorrow morning and will hopefully make a decision on it tomorrow. I think the trade off would be detail of birds over the zoom.
Thanks

 

[Mike Crawley]

I’ve always been a fan of a zoom eyepiece.
I’ve looked through many, often at twitches (after the initial excitement !) when a wader is showing in the open, etc.
My conclusion is that I couldn’t be without a zoom and (in my humble opinion) the 25 - 50 Swarovski is the best currently available. Admittedly, getting to that conclusion took a while and quite a few visits to my local optics shop

 

[kabsetz]

If you are meeting with a friend with a BTX, surely you can ask to try the BTX module on your 85 objective. If that feels good, get the module first and the 115 objective later if your appetite grows.

 

[Wayne_glossop]

If you are meeting with a friend with a BTX, surely you can ask to try the BTX module on your 85 objective. If that feels good, get the module first and the 115 objective later if your appetite grows.

Absolutely, I'm not overly keen on the 115, he's got the BTX and ATX and uses the 85mm so I'll see how it pans out tomorrow. Thanks

 

[safaridreaming]

I hv the ATX / BTX combination on both the 115mm and more recently the 85mm. If i reflect back on the last 12 months of how ive used my spotting scope (since getting the BTX), i rarely use the ATX eyepiece at all now.

All my local (around my house and local park) viewing is done via 115 BTX setup, and my travel setup is the 85 BTX. It’s hard for me to now consider going back to a single eyepiece. The 30 / 35x fixed mag is sufficient for almost everything i observe and the lack of eye fatigue trying observe for prolonged periods of time is simply incredible. Paired with my SV EL 32’s, i swap from BTX to bino and vice versa with almost no thought as the ergonomics are identical between the two optics.

I’ll keep the ATX eyepiece simply because resale is not good in Australia on these but i dont think I’ll get much use out of it.