New Kowa 88a - tricky eye placement (1 Viewer)

[afk314]

After buying and returning a Nikon Monarch 82ed, I received a new Kowa 88a. I liked the Nikon a lot and would have kept it, but found myself wanting a broader system to play with. I have a view right behind the house that reaches up into the mountains at a distance of 2 miles+ so the 1.6 extender was an obvious choice. I also wanted a plug & play Olin adapter, better options for astro eyepieces, etc. So, I went ahead and ponied up for the Kowa. I bought online, got a good price, and felt very comfortable with the seller.

But now I find that eye placement is much more complicated for me. Even around 40x, I find panning and searching for animals / birds to be a bit frustrating. The image just isn't very stable, I can't get locked into it like I did on a Nikon. I'm wondering if maybe the eyecups just don't get tall enough for me and I'll need to spend more energy managing the eye relief with this scope? It has been about 10 days and though I am more comfortable with it, I realize the Nikon somehow fit me so much better.

Any ideas or things for me to consider?

Thanks!
Adam

 

[Hermann]

Do a star test to make sure the 88a is up to scratch. That's always the first step. If you don't know how to do one, use the forum search. Henry Link explained how to do a star test a couple of times on this forum. Lemons do exist, and if you got one, you need to send the scope back.

Hermann

 

[dave hughston]

This thread interested me ,as l have just purchased a Kowa 88a having had the original Nikon 82a fieldscope which l was always very happy with and only the narrow field of view with the zoom(25x75) a excellent eyepiece otherwise,but l used the mc30 WA for 90% of the time.lt has taken me only a few weeks to adjust to the Kowa ,with eye placement,full time use of a zoom when required and have come to the conclusion the Kowa is a tremendous scope and has solved the only problem I had with the Nikon .
The Kowa is optically very good,but no brighter and only a little sharper than the Nikon ,l always knew my 82A was very good,and so is the Kowa ,l honestly feel l have paid a lot of money for a good zoom ,so if the image isn’t stable there is something wrong with that particular scope,send it back you may find one or the other suit you better,just get a good one of the one you decide on .

 

[henry link]

I would play around with the eyecup extension. The eye relief of the Kowa zoom is longest at low magnification, then takes a dip in the middle of the zoom range and then partially recovers at the highest magnifications so that I find the ideal eyecup setting to avoid kidney beaning and/or vignetting is not quite constant over the whole range.

 

[afk314]

Thanks, everyone.

I think it's eye relief, as Henry mentioned. I did a star test, indoors, using an LED light and foil and managed to get what appeared to be a good result. It was harder to get a picture of it than it was to do the test so I stopped short of that. But it looked pretty good.

What is curious to me is the TE-W11Z II eyepiece has eyecups that stop short of the full relief. If I raise the eyecup all the way up, I'm still a mm or two from the optimal spot. So, I try to rest some part of my face on the eyecup but that puts me at an angle. I need to experiment with a bit of foam. I remember seeing the TE-W11Z II eyecup only has 4 stop, while version 1 has five. I wonder if they dropped the highest one?

-Adam