Quote:
Originally Posted by shack living
thankyou for the feedback so far.
* is the magnification exact, in that 60x means that a calf 1 metre tall will appear 60 metres tall compared to what the naked eye sees?
* I have a heavy manfrotto tripod, so no problems for stability 
* I researched the C65 Mini Maksutov, specs were impressive but comes up with really bad reviews unfortunately
* closest major town is Albury/Wodonga, could see if I can find some shops that sell suitable optics? |
Look at it this way: 60x magnification will make an object appear 60x closer. Therefore a cow 1500m away will appear as if it was 25m away. You need a good aperture to get good brightness at 60x. I recommend 80mm minimum but for your application a zoom would be highly recommended to get wider fields for searching and then close-up for examining. You could do this by changing eyepieces though.
Talk to BINTEL about a quality 80mm spotting scope or get an ED80 and a 8-24mm quality zoom eyepiece. This will give you 25x to 75x magnification with good brightness.