How about the eye relief ?
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Monarch 82ED, a Perfect Ten (4 Viewers)
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has530
Well-known member
It is interesting you say that because I have actually stopped using the Baader MKIV with my monarch due to its worse correction of later color compared with the 20-60 zoom.
4 The Birds1
Well-known member
Pass - I have glasses, but I don't have first hand experience with Monarch scopes (I got one from Austria).
It will depend on whether you are short-sighted or long-sighted (long-sighted glasses wearers need more eye relief), and on the fit of your glasses in relation to your face/eye.
The eye relief for the 30-60 WA eye piece is given as 14.2-15.2 mm.
The 20-60 eye piece has got an extra millimetre: 15.3-16.1 mm
I think you'll have to try and see for yourself. I suspect if you are short sighted it should be fine, but if you are long sighted it won't.
One of my binoculars have similarly short-ish eye relief: Canon 18x50, per manufacturer ER=15 mm, but the lens is somewhat recessed, so it is really less than 15mm. Works with my (short-sighted) glasses, but really just about, while other users have found these bins unusable with glasses.
Good luck
I am slightly long-sighted (but foremost I need correction for astigmatism) so bad news then I guess. 14,2 - 15,2 seems short compared to most other eye-pieces today. I had a look at the Baader zoom mark iv, which many here seems to prefer, and according to it’s specifications it seems it has more eye-relief.
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Hermann
Well-known member
Check Katerin's postings on the eyerelief of the two zooms: KaterinBortle9. You need to click on "messages" to get a full list of her postings.
Hermann
Hermann
DRodrigues
Well-known member
Unlike Meopta, the Nikon wide zoom hasn't wider TFOV than the other...
If TFOVs and AFOVs are supposed to be maximised, I would go for a SVBony SuperZoom, since have AFOVs similar to the Swaro/Kowa and has larger TFOVs than the Baader Zoom - Astro zooms test
Tbirds2222
New member
Thanks for reviewing the superzooms! Too bad the APM can't be adapted.Unlike Meopta, the Nikon wide zoom hasn't wider TFOV than the other...
If TFOVs and AFOVs are supposed to be maximised, I would go for a SVBony SuperZoom, since have AFOVs similar to the Swaro/Kowa and has larger TFOVs than the Baader Zoom - Astro zooms test
Questions about the SVB:
1. Does it have the same 2 inch adapter thread as the BZ?
2. How is the image quality compared to the BZ? What did you mean by "dark coatings"? Darker, softer, less contrasty?
After some thought I ended up buying this scope and today it arrived from Nikon! First scope I have owned.
I bought refurbished to save some money ($1,119) and jumped on it with concern over the tariffs causing an increased price.
First impressions: Not as heavy as I was expecting and seems solid. Eye piece is larger than I expected. The refurbished version does not come with a branded box or manual and only a 90 day warranty. Only light signs of use: I can see where the cover was on the scope for a period of time (slight discoloration) and a very small speck of black paint missing near the front. The mount still had a plastic film that was unblemished. It came with the neoprene case, straps, and lens covers.
Unfortunately I am not going to be able to take it outside for use until the weekend.
However, I did an artificial star test as the directions on this forum provide (pin prick hole in aluminum foil over an LED flashlight). Trying to get a picture on my phone was an exercise in frustration and futility and I gave up. But what I did see made me happy. The foil I used ended up having 5 or 6 micro holes in it that provided absolutely excellent artificial stars. On both ends of the focus I saw concentric perfectly round rings except the outermost which was fuzzier much like I have seen in pictures posted here, but it was still round. If I can figure out how to get a picture I will. I do have an older DSLR camera shoved somewhere I can try with at some point.
I bought refurbished to save some money ($1,119) and jumped on it with concern over the tariffs causing an increased price.
First impressions: Not as heavy as I was expecting and seems solid. Eye piece is larger than I expected. The refurbished version does not come with a branded box or manual and only a 90 day warranty. Only light signs of use: I can see where the cover was on the scope for a period of time (slight discoloration) and a very small speck of black paint missing near the front. The mount still had a plastic film that was unblemished. It came with the neoprene case, straps, and lens covers.
Unfortunately I am not going to be able to take it outside for use until the weekend.
However, I did an artificial star test as the directions on this forum provide (pin prick hole in aluminum foil over an LED flashlight). Trying to get a picture on my phone was an exercise in frustration and futility and I gave up. But what I did see made me happy. The foil I used ended up having 5 or 6 micro holes in it that provided absolutely excellent artificial stars. On both ends of the focus I saw concentric perfectly round rings except the outermost which was fuzzier much like I have seen in pictures posted here, but it was still round. If I can figure out how to get a picture I will. I do have an older DSLR camera shoved somewhere I can try with at some point.
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My impression is that most of the objections to this spotting scope have been primarily about the eyepiece. Partly because of color bleeding, partly because they do not work for spectacle wearers. What do you think about the eyepiece?
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William Lewis
Wishing birdwatching paid the bills.
Congratulations, an excellent first foray into the world of spotting scopes and quite possibly the only one you'll ever need.
I also do not wear spectacles but the view does seem narrow on the MEP20-60, but my most recent other scope viewing was done on a swaro with a wide view eye piece so not the best comparison.
I actually managed to get some star tests done again with pictures! However, they are only around 8-9meters away but the holes are very small in the foil. Not sure if this makes these non-diagnostic or not. Uploading multiples because the phone camera was having a large impact and want to show an overall representation of what I was seeing. Some are close and some are far focused.
I actually managed to get some star tests done again with pictures! However, they are only around 8-9meters away but the holes are very small in the foil. Not sure if this makes these non-diagnostic or not. Uploading multiples because the phone camera was having a large impact and want to show an overall representation of what I was seeing. Some are close and some are far focused.
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William Lewis
Wishing birdwatching paid the bills.
I can vouch for the 38 wide being a very good eyepiece although compromised in the ways you would expect a fixed eyepiece to be - sometimes providing slightly too high magnification due to atmospheric conditions and on gloomy mornings not quite as much exit pupil as I would like giving a dim view.
The 20-60 zoom is good but compromised with a slightly narrow field of view, especially at lower magnifications. My main bug bear as with most zooms though is the lack of parfocality but even more frustratingly the varying eye relief. In the field that means changing magnification also means you have to vary the focus and then the eyecup position - too much faff for me so the fixed is all I use now.
The 20-60 zoom is good but compromised with a slightly narrow field of view, especially at lower magnifications. My main bug bear as with most zooms though is the lack of parfocality but even more frustratingly the varying eye relief. In the field that means changing magnification also means you have to vary the focus and then the eyecup position - too much faff for me so the fixed is all I use now.
DRodrigues
Well-known member
1. The has a 2 inch adapter but isn't the same of the BZ;
2. Image fells darker than the APM (not than the BZ, but my BZ already has some debris inside...), but shows high resolution image, not softer.
BoldenEagle
Well-known member
I had a chance to test one more Monarch 82ED (with 30-60x zoom) sample. I did indoor star test at a distance of about 6 meters using artificial star point (foil + flashlight) and then compared the image quality against my Kowa 883 (25-60x zoom) outdoor with several targets.
The star test showed very good correction of spherical aberration allthough inside and outside were not completely identical, I have seen this good correction just in one earlier Monarch 82ED sample (these are the only ones I have star tested) and perhaps in a couple of Swarovski ATX95 samples. Maybe at a longer distance it would have been even better. Mild astigmatism was present and also clearly some coma (it was difficult to see the coma at just 60x magnification, I think it was most evident at just one ring around the center point where the centre point seemed to touch the outer ring on the upperside but not on the downside). So the star test was not bad but not in the cherry territory either. My Kowa 883 has just a touch of astigmatism and coma, little worse spherical aberration and quite evident prism line in a star test pattern. For a comparison I star tested also my Kowa using the same target and in a fact it showed better correction of spherical aberration that I remembered; maybe I managed to make small enough hole in the foil this time.
In a direct comparison against Kowa 883 the Nikon didn't produce quite as sharp image or showed similar details, allthough the difference was very small and I would say that Nikon seemed to have better contrast than Kowa. Heat haze present Kowa showed clearly better image quality, in a degree that I suspected if the sun warming the other side of the Nikon's bare black metal body (Kowa had it's case on) had something to do with that result.
As this time I had more time to play with these scopes, the most striking difference between these scopes in general for me was the eyepiece comfort and ease of focusing. Coming from the Leica 25-50x WW and Kowa TE-11WZ 25-60x luxury zooms the Nikon MEP 30-60xW was not in the same line, at least not as an eyeglass wearer. Nikon had quite stiff helical collar and it was difficult to focus correctly at max. magnification due to the shaking, the action was not too fast at a greater distances but at closer range also the fast action made it more difficult to obtain perfect focus. I think Kowa 883 type dual focus knobs are basically ideal, allthough the fine focus gear should be even a little slower to be truly perfect.
So for a randomly selected 82 mm scope this sample was probably quite good, allthough the other Nikon Monarch 82ED sample I tested earlier was even better one, seemingly at least as good as my Kowa 883 sample (that Nikon also had better star test results).
Regards, Juhani
The star test showed very good correction of spherical aberration allthough inside and outside were not completely identical, I have seen this good correction just in one earlier Monarch 82ED sample (these are the only ones I have star tested) and perhaps in a couple of Swarovski ATX95 samples. Maybe at a longer distance it would have been even better. Mild astigmatism was present and also clearly some coma (it was difficult to see the coma at just 60x magnification, I think it was most evident at just one ring around the center point where the centre point seemed to touch the outer ring on the upperside but not on the downside). So the star test was not bad but not in the cherry territory either. My Kowa 883 has just a touch of astigmatism and coma, little worse spherical aberration and quite evident prism line in a star test pattern. For a comparison I star tested also my Kowa using the same target and in a fact it showed better correction of spherical aberration that I remembered; maybe I managed to make small enough hole in the foil this time.
In a direct comparison against Kowa 883 the Nikon didn't produce quite as sharp image or showed similar details, allthough the difference was very small and I would say that Nikon seemed to have better contrast than Kowa. Heat haze present Kowa showed clearly better image quality, in a degree that I suspected if the sun warming the other side of the Nikon's bare black metal body (Kowa had it's case on) had something to do with that result.
As this time I had more time to play with these scopes, the most striking difference between these scopes in general for me was the eyepiece comfort and ease of focusing. Coming from the Leica 25-50x WW and Kowa TE-11WZ 25-60x luxury zooms the Nikon MEP 30-60xW was not in the same line, at least not as an eyeglass wearer. Nikon had quite stiff helical collar and it was difficult to focus correctly at max. magnification due to the shaking, the action was not too fast at a greater distances but at closer range also the fast action made it more difficult to obtain perfect focus. I think Kowa 883 type dual focus knobs are basically ideal, allthough the fine focus gear should be even a little slower to be truly perfect.
So for a randomly selected 82 mm scope this sample was probably quite good, allthough the other Nikon Monarch 82ED sample I tested earlier was even better one, seemingly at least as good as my Kowa 883 sample (that Nikon also had better star test results).
Regards, Juhani
