All You Need to Know About Spotting Scopes
transcript: hi everybody kent martz here with explore scientific today we're going to be talking about one of our big brands alpen optics so we're going to start off but the show today is going to be all about spotting scopes so uh here on facebook we're going to talk about first the alpen 20 to 60 by 80 millimeter spotting scope what that means is [Music] are we on vr maybe not on i'm gonna go ahead and act like we're on because if we're not i can just go back so the we are live okay we are live i won't start again assuming you've joined us so uh talking about the alpenoptics kodiak 20 to 60 by 80 by excuse me 60 millimeter spotting scope so that means that this spotting scope i want to loosen this so i can turn it this spotting scope right here has a objective of 60 millimeters across and it has a a zoom eyepiece that goes from 20 power to 60 power simply by rotating it has a lock on it here and i am not going to force there we go so it's simple rotation rotates the zoom from 20 power to 60 power this is great spotting scope for grab-and-go comes with a nice little carrying case that it fits in well as well as a lens cleaning cloth eyepiece cover that goes on it and just screws right on and comes off it's got a built-in keeper for the objective lens cap and this is a straight through we're going to look at some others that have 45 degree angles but this is a straight through right now so it's a very simple thing to simply just look down and focus with this knob i'm gonna turn it so you can see it focus with this knob right here and it has i'm getting a lot of glare off that light so i won't be able to focus on anything i don't think it has a focus a close focus of 20 feet so we're not going to be able to get it focused here close in the studio but you simply focus right here just like a telescope would except it's going the other direction this tripod has a nice metal base it's small because it's designed to put on you know a fence a hood of a truck or car while you're out in the woods it also comes with a standard one quarter to 20 nut so any tripod that has a standard one quarter to 20 bolt on it can attach to the tripod so you don't have to use just this tripod you can use any standard tripod and that goes for all the scopes we're talking about today spotting scopes great grab and go this will make a good package for hiking backpacking bird watching nature watching even stargazing spotting scopes are great devices if you have one it's a multi-use device it's an awesome thing this one would be difficult to use because you have to look straight through it whereas the 45 degree angle ones we're going to look at here right now have a much more usable 45 degree and i will show that to you right now this is the open optics 20 to 60 by 60 millimeter spotting scope now we're going to move on to a bigger model this is the alpen shasta ridge spotting scope right here it also comes with a lens cleaning cough and it comes with this big old honking right there carry bag for it so it comes with a carry bag i'm just going to set this right here keep it perfect you can see it sir this is a 20 to 60 by 80 alpine spotting scope and as you can tell it has a 45 degree angle making it much easier for uh looking down into extreme weather ready fully multi-coated optics the completely waterproof and far proof outlet 786 spotting scope gets your prey in range every the included micro adjustable tripod gives a steady base allowing you to dial in your target powerful enough to bring your focus into crystal clear view at a thousand yards 786 spotting scopes 80 millimeter aperture brings enough light to conquer almost any condition they can't make your hunt the best you've ever had with the right equipment from pumping optics with the durable 786 outlet spikes the light train in the telescope has been coated with proprietary coatings that help transmission of light keep the light in phase so it doesn't have any chromatic aberration things like that this one comes with a real cool tripod with slow motion control so this is a tip that goes up and down i think you can see it moving there yeah so you can see it moving and it also has a control that turns it left and right so makes it easy if you're looking out through something to want to track something and say a deer walking across the field or watch a bird hopping along you can simply use these slow motion controls and as you can see right there by turning out it takes a lot of turning to move it which means it's got a very precise mechanism you know so you can't don't turn it and make it go a long ways to where you can't see it also comes with a really nice sturdy tripod you can raise and lower this tripod simply by unscrewing this right here and you can raise it up to a little bit higher height obviously the higher it goes the more shaky it's going to be i like to use them as low down as i can to reduce vibrations so this is the alpine shasta ridge 20 to 60 by 80 waterproof spotting scope fully multi-coated it's a rubber armored tripod the really nice carrying case close focus on this model is 30 feet and it offers 18 millimeters eye relief which is great for people who wear glasses you some people will not have to take their glasses off to be able to use this some people will have to take the glasses off simple mechanism right here easy to focus with a finger right here just rotating it each way the alpha alpine shaster edge 20 to 60 by 80 spotting scope right here one of the great products from explore scientific via our alpen brand of spotting scopes now i'm going to leave this bag up here because it's quite effectively the same as the one that comes with the alpine shaster ridge 25 by 75 5 by 100 spotting scope so as you can tell this one has a big honking piece of glass up here in front compare the diameters between the 80 and the 100 right here you can see that 100 brings in significantly more light and the more light you see the better off you are in lower light because it puts more light into your pupil which makes it a brighter image has an eyepiece on the end it zooms from 25 to 75 which is what that 25 to 75 means simple turn can zoom in on something it also has the same standard focus it's a 45 degree angle view and it comes with this tripod once again has really nice slow motion up down left right controls so that you're able to move it very precisely as you follow whatever you're looking at across the mountain or field or track a bird or whatever obviously if the bird moves you can move it quickly by going moving at the tripod and then fine tune like this now when you're using a spotting scope with high magnification you know starting at 20 and 25 i advise people to use a pair of binoculars and we don't have any binoculars in the show today but we've had binoculars in the pa binoculars in the past because those binoculars allow you to locate in general where they are and give you an idea of where to look and move the telescope to that spot and helps you find the thing you're looking for so a low power you know 10 by 42s or 10 by 50s and then jump up to the 20 or 25 let you get centered on the object and then you can simply as you follow it you can zoom in on that uh device and on that critter or uh you know if you're looking at a uh the moon or a planet these are fantastic for astronomy as well simple to focus additionally these come with a mount right here so you can buy an adapter on both of these models of the shasta ridge both the 20 to 60 and the 25 to 75 you can attach a camera and actually use this as a camera lens and take pictures through the spotting scope uh that's an additional purchase but it's very possible it's very simple thing to set up so that's the show for today oh got a question yep yeah you know spotting scopes uh give you some very as you said killer views of the moon uh planets will look nice uh these are fantastic for astronomy as well as any outdoor sportsman kind of activities i've used the spotting scope a little bit i've never used this one i need to take it out on a clear night and put it on m42 put it on the moon things like that and caution i always caution when we're talking about optics never look at the sun with an optic because you will burn your eye boil your eye i like your eyes the way they are now so i don't want them to get injured because you use something in an improper manner you could buy a solar filter that's a correct filter to put over the front of this either glass or foam or a fill film and look at the sun but don't attempt it until you study what you're doing and become educated with it this would offer a safe solar filter view of the sun as well so killer views through spotting scopes uh they're lightweight they're portable obviously if you're going to be using this to look at something up in the sky it's going to be beneficial to have a full-size tripod so you're not having to sit down on the ground or you know you could for short views you could put on the hood of a car or hood of a truck or a park bench or something like that for for longer use you would want to have a more substantial tripod full-size height to make your viewing easier because you would just get tired of having to hunker over depending on the position you could get the tripod on these spotting scopes so we appreciate that comment from astro who was it space time with robert thank you space time with robert any other shout outs we can give you see people checked in there paul oh my god he's got his microphone over there we go he's a disembodied voice right so shout outs to anybody or he's can't he can multitask real well but he's not used to talking and multitasking yeah so anyway we're going to go on well no let's see here we go here we go got it now his microphone went to foots yeah so we've got uh marwan hakam balawi i apologize for butchering everybody's names uh spacetime with robert tariq alhamariri hi tariq astro beards on here space time again and just quite a few comments about the spotting scopes they have much more uses obviously than the uh just the hunting or whatnot but it is absolutely it is alpine and alpine is our our nice outdoor brand optics and space time with robert he says another great use that we've got out of it was with mount saint helens he got a very nice view of the summit oh that's cool yeah looking at mountains landscapes you know would be uh pretty awesome you know with big binoculars this size they're impossible to hold up but a spotting scope this size uh this remains a very portable thing you could take with you wherever you're going to do some landscape stuff where if you wanted to have some really powerful optics you know a pair of binoculars or a telescope this big is going to be you know a shorter carry a heavier tripod this is designed for outdoorsmen who are out hunting typically but great for bird watching uh great for all uh anything outdoors so well it's it's a size of some of the small telescopes oh it's bigger than it's bigger than a significant number of our first light telescopes yeah a 100 it's a 100 millimeter diameter telescope you know uh our entry level uh essential series explore scientific telescope is an 80 millimeter which is you know 20 mil 10 millis 20 millimeters bigger than the 60 20 millimeters smaller than the 100 and it's about this size so you know uh this is uh commensurate in price to that as well uh below a thousand dollars for as it sits right now well that's a big one yeah that's for the big one that's where the shaster ridge 25 to 75 zoom 100 millimeters so we're gonna go ahead and get on out of here uh we look forward to talking to you next time i appreciate you tuning in i'm kent martz uh with explore scientific and we've been talking about the alpine brand of spotting scopes we'll be on tomorrow and friday no we won't be on tomorrow we will be on tomorrow we won't be on tomorrow we will be on friday i think we've got a another show here in the studio at the same time so we will see in the future we appreciate your support and explore scientific uh like us follow us on our facebook page uh join us on our uh global staff parties and other broadcasts we do i'm out of here kent martz have a great afternoon