Quote:
Originally Posted by jeelan
Hi all,
Ive just taken delivery of the Swaro ATS 80 spotting scope with 25-50x zoom and have written to APM to see if they have an adapter which allows me to use this eyepiece on my scopes but was also interested in picking up the Zeiss 20-75x due to the wide range it offers but haven't read too many reviews about the Zeiss.
cheers
Jeelan
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Hi Jeelen, I have the earlier Zeiss 20-60 zoom on my Zeiss 85TFL that I bought new 10 years ago. It gets extensive terrestrial use and is also my light weight grab and go scope at night. Not the same lens but perhaps some comments may help.
Image quality is first class across the whole FOV across the magnification range. I cannot detect any aberrations, not that I have had a forensic look and have not had any other eyepiece in the scope to compare. The is no degradation of the image at the edge of the FOV. The field stop is sharp and black. The AFOV increases slightly and eye relief decreases as magnification increases. I don't know the specs but eye relief appears similar to my Vixen LV eyepieces at low magnifications, about 20mm. At high powers I would estimate eye relief at 10mm. Build quality is typical Zeiss and it works just like new after 10 years of regular use.
As a separate thought, I would question the value of buying the Zeiss 20-75, unless your plan is to sell the Leica. You are only gaining a 50% increase in maximum magnification for considerable expense. Visually this may not be a worthwhile apparent increase for the expense. You can get a feel for the effective increase by comparing the images at 33 and 50x in your Swarovski.
I find myself seldom using the higher powers for terrestrial use and the sweet spot for astronomical observing is also at the lower range. The higher power gets a workout for the moon and planets of course - eg a quick grab and go look at a shadow transit on Jupiter or the terminator line on the Moon.
Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Steve.