Pentax PF-80
I have a unique perspective on the Pentax perhaps. I have been an amateur astronomer for the last 25 years and a birder for 15 years. As am astronomer, I have been an avid user of Pentax eyepieces for years. They are simply magnificent eyepieces. Many believe Pentax and TeleVue produce the best of the best. Eyepieces in the astronomy world are all standardized to 1.25" barrels which permits direct comparisons of telescope optics simply by moving the same eyepiece from scope to scope and comparing the results. Over the years, I have owned a number of excellent apochromatic telescopes including ones by Takahashi, TeleVue, Stellarvue, and AP. One thing I have learned is that the really good companies all make great objective lenses and optical tubes. More often the limiting factor of a great astronomical telescope's performance is the eyepiece - seemingly a much more complex packaging of optics as compared to the simpler objective assembly. I also believe that the astronomy world has gotton optics right - that is, they have standardized eyepiece barrel size to allow for transfer of great eyepieces from scope to scope. Additionally, the objective lenses used in astronomical telescopes have to continually stand up to star-test scrutiny. This is a high magnification test which allows a fairly quantifiable assessment of optical quality in rapid fashion. I believe this test will tell one much more about optical quality that even the use of a resolution chart with spotting scopes. The birding world, by comparison has entered the land of high quality optics only recently in terms of spotting scopes. I remember the days when I would bird with an old SpaceMaster(?) spotting scope. By astronomical standards just a miserable performer. Of course later things began to change. It all started with Kowa's introduction of a "great" zoom. Well, the "great" zoom was simply a modified version of the Vixen Zoom, well known to astronomers for years. After that things began to improve more quickly. A few really usable zooms emerged and we began to see some wonderful wide angle, long eye relief, fixed focal length objectives show up from Leica and others. Well, these had been around for a long time on the astronomical side. My (and others) reaction was....about time! So, what does this say about the Pentax PF-80. Just this - I believe the objective assembly on the Pentax PF-80 is as good as anyone's, including Zeiss, Swarovski, Pentax, and Leica. When we all read birding scope reviews of these industry leader's scopes, we are really reading reviews of eye pieces (more or less). I am confident these great optical companies mastered the production of fine objective lenses long ago. Since we can't switch out eyepieces in order to control for the effect and truly assess the objective assembly, we convince ourselves that the scope (and not the eyepiece) is what is being reviewed. I use my PF-80 with two Pentax XL eyepieces (21mm and 14mm) that I own. The view is absolutely unbelievable. The Pentax zoom, or any zoom for that matter, is simply nowhere close. You might note that Better View Desired rated the PF-80 the Reference Standard for 80mm scopes but did so only when using the fixed focal length eyepieces (not the zoom) and that ranking has survived subsequent reviews of the Swarovski, Leica, and Zeiss big new scopes. Right now, I believe that the Pentax fixed focal length eyepieces are simply the best. Unfortuntely the only spotting scope they fit is the Pentax (and all astronomical telescopes as well). If they were to fit spotting scopes, they would provide just as remarkable a view in the Swarovski, Leica, Zeiss, or Pentax. If you have not looked through the Pentax with one of the fixed focal length eyepieces inserted you are missing something. By the way, the TeleVue eyepieces (naglers and radians) are also amazing on the Pentax. Someday eyepiece barrels will be standardized for all and then birders will learn that all the reviews that they have read on scopes were really reviewing eyepieces. Get the Pentax and enjoy the opportunity to choose between over 200 possible eyepieces from the modest but adequate to the stunning and unbelievable (e.g. Pentax and TeleVue). By the way, I have star tested the PF-80 at high magnification and the objective optics are not limiting the performance of the scope.