The Extraordinary Svbony SV202 8 x 42 ED.

Posted on 11/11/2022 by Neil English

A Work Commenced November 12 2022

Preamble 1

Preamble 2

Preamble 3

Product: Svbony SV202 8 x 42 ED

Country of Manufacture: Hong Kong

Chassis: Textured rubber armoured Magnesium alloy

Exit Pupil: 5.25mm

Field of View: 131m@1000m(7.5 angular degrees)

Eye Relief: 17.5mm

Dioptre Compensation: +/- 3

Close Focus: 2m advertised, 2.27m measured

Coatings: Fully broadband multicoated, dielectric and phase coatings on BAK4 roof prisms

ED Glass: Yes

Waterproof: Yes IPX7 rating

Nitrogen Purged: Yes

Weight: 720g advertised, 720g measured

Dimensions: 15 x 11.5 cm

Accessories: Padded soft case, logoed neoprene neck strap, ocular and objective covers, microfibre lens cleaning cloth, instruction manual

Warranty: 1 year

Price(US): $179.99

The old Latin proverb, Omne trium perfectum, came to mind as I finally got a chance to look though the new Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED. After discovering the many virtues of both the compact 8 x 32 and full-size 10 x 42 from the same series, and communicating my findings with the general community, a great many people have benefited from using these binoculars and reported on their amazing optics and ergonomics. Despite receiving attacks from online trolls and a few individuals who hate me and my work for no cause, they got egg on their faces as interest in these binoculars went viral(preamble 3 is only one of several threads available to peruse online). More and more favourable reports kept coming out, making these instruments go from strength to strength across the world, where they have shattered once and for all the myth that excellent binoculars can only be had by shelling out large sums of money.

I’m delighted to say that those days are well and truly behind us now!

As soon as the new 8 x 42 had been launched, I immediately received a barrage of emails requesting a review. After thinking about it a little while, I decided to act on these requests – it just seemed to be the right thing to do. The instrument was not yet available on Amazon, the online retailer that I had bought the SV 202 8 x 32 and 10 x 42 ED models from, so I went to Svbony’s Website and ordered it directly from them. My order was placed on October 20 and the instrument arrived safely on the afternoon of November 1. I paid $179.99 US to secure my order but had to pay an additional 20 per cent import tariff in order for the binocular to clear customs, so about £200 all in.

First Impressions & Ergonomics

Just like the previous two models, the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED arrived in the same neat little box. Inside, the same black soft padded case housed the instrument, with the rain guard and tethered objective lens covers attached. The box also contained a padded neoprene logoed neck strap, a lens cleaning microfibre cloth and multi-language instruction manual and warranty information.

The instrument was immaculately presented with its durable magnesium alloy chassis overlaid with a tough non-oxidising rubber armouring, and presenting the same ridges at the side of the barrels as the other models for excellent gripping in all weathers. Inspecting the innards of the binocular from the objective end, I was relieved to find that everything looked immaculate, with no signs of streaks on the optics, dust or other debris inside. The knife-edge baffles looked nicely machined and the inside painted a dull matt black to optimise contrast.

Examining the focus wheel, I was delighted to see that it was silky smooth and backlash free, taking 1.5 turns anticlockwise to go from one extreme of its focus travel to infinity and a little bit beyond. Tension is excellent – just as good as on the 10 x 42 ED and not quite as tight as on the 8 x 32 ED model(which niggled me a little).

**A great focuser maketh the binocular.**

The twist-up eyecups are also excellent. Fashioned from machined metal overlaid with soft rubber, they have three positions to accommodate the vast majority of users, including those who wear eyeglasses. They lock into each position with a reassuring ‘click’ and remain very rigidly in place. Indeed, from memory, they appear to be very similar to those found on the excellent Nikon Monarch HG binocular series. The eye relief is more than sufficient to view the entire field with glasses on, as my tests showed.

The right-eye dioptre adjustment ring is located under the eyepiece. It has excellent texture and tension to enable the user to quickly and accurately find his/her desired setting. Unlike the majority of binoculars in this price range, the plus and minus settings are easy to see and a white dot makes it easy for you to remember your preferred setting. Once adjusted, it remains rigidly in place for hassle free observing.

The single bridge is fairly short, allowing the user to wrap his/her fingers around the front of the barrels securely to ensure supremely comfortable handling.

The broadband anti-reflection coatings have a beautiful purple hue in broad daylight. They appear very evenly applied and appear to almost disappear when viewed from oblique angles. The 42mm objective lenses are nicely recessed, affording good protection from stray light, dust and rain. The ocular lenses are large and easy to centre one’s eyes in.

**The beautifully applied anti-reflection coatings on the large ocular lenses.**

**The deeply recessed objective lenses on the Svbony SV202 8 x 42 ED.**

Overall, and in keeping with my comments on the 8 x 32 and 10 x 42 models, the fit and finish on the Svbony SV202 8 x 42 ED is excellent. And just like its siblings, it looks and feels like a real class act, being quite lightweight(720g) and a particular joy to handle. These binoculars were clearly built with longevity in mind, and all I can say is that there is nothing in the design of these instruments that gives me any grounds for doubt.

Optical Assessment

In my experiences testing dozens of models in this aperture class over the years, I’ve encountered many that look the part only to discover that their optics were, let’s just say, underwhelming. I’m delighted to report that the optics of the SV 202 8 x 42 ED did not disappoint! To give the reader an honest and thorough idea of how good this binocular is, I took the liberty to test it alongside two other instruments in the same aperture class: the Hawke Endurance ED 8 x 42 retailing at just over £200 and the more expensive GPO Passion ED 8 x 42 costing £404.

**GPO Passion ED 8 x 42(top) and Svbony SV202 8 x 42 ED(bottom).**

**Hawke Endurance ED 8x 42(top) and the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED(bottom).**

First examining the image of an intensely bright beam of white light directed into the instruments from across a darkened indoor setting, the results from the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED were really excellent! It stubbornly refused to show up any internal reflections, unlike the Hawke Endurance ED, which showed up some prominent ones in comparison. Nor was there any diffused light around the light source in the Svbony unlike the Hawke which was easy to see in comparison. Clearly, the Svbony has noticeably superior coatings and baffles to stubbornly block off these annoying optical artefacts. Now, when I compared the Svbony to the GPO Passion ED 8 x 42, the results were a lot closer but I must report that the Svbony also showed slightly better resistance to internal reflections than the GPO. Indeed, predictably enough, I obtained the same results when I turned the instruments on a bright full Moon and a sodium streetlamp after dark. Internal reflections and diffused light were quite obvious in the Hawke and much better in the GPO but I was still able to make out some weak internal reflections in the GPO binocular in comparison to the Svbony, which showed none in comparison. These are excellent results, and quite in keeping with the two other SV202 models I purchased and tested in my past evaluations(see Preamble 1 & 2 above).

Next, taking a look at the exit pupils aimed at a bright, artificial light source, I was delighted to see that the large exit pupils on the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED were perfectly round, with little in the way of light bleeds in their vicinity as the photos below show;

So how are the views through the Svbony SV202 8 x 42ED? In a word: excellent! The image is very bright and razor sharp across the vast majority of the field. The binocular shows lovely micro-contrast details. Images snap to focus with absolutely no ambiguity. You’re either in focus or out of focus. No fiddling required! Contrast and colour rendering are also excellent. Glare is very well supressed but not quite as good as the best binoculars I’ve sampled in the £800 + range. On a CN thread I initiated on the SV202 8 x 32 ED I made the comment that Svbony were better off making the field of view a little smaller to reduce the severity of the field curvature seen near the field stops. I believe Svbony has listened and actively addressed the problem. The view is wide(7.5 angular degrees) but not overly so. This makes the sweetspot proportionately larger in the 8 x 42 than either the 8 x 32 or the 10 x 42 models previously assessed. How big? I’d estimate that its razor sharp over at least 70 per cent of the field, with mild field curvature and some barrel distortion creeping in as one approaches the field stops. But make no mistake about it, even at the field stops, the images of stars I assessed(discussed below) were tighter than I remember on the two earlier models I field tested.

Comparing the views through the similarly-priced Hawke Endurance ED, the difference was obvious; the Svbony was noticeably sharper, had better contrast and with better control of both general field glare and veiling glare. Colour correction was maybe a shade better in the Hawke though, but I’ve noted that some of the sharpest binoculars I’ve tested over the last four years have had some secondary spectrum bleed. Having said that, there is only the merest trace of it within the sweet spot but as one moves to the outer field, lateral colour can often be picked up when viewing tree branches against a uniformly lit grey background sky; a harsh test for any binocular, however well made.

I got even more excited when I tested the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED against the GPO Passion ED 8 x 42. This time, I canvassed the opinions of a few students to compare and contrast the views in both good and poor ambient light conditions, having already made my mind up on the matter. The results were again unanimous: they all agreed with me that the Svbony served up sharper images though they noted that the field of view of the GPO was noticeably wider( 8.1 angular degrees). But they could see, as I did, that the edge of field performance was noticeably better in the Sybony – a consequence of its more conservative sized field of view. These are truly excellent results and fully in keeping with the title of this review: the Extraordinary Svbony!

Notes from the Field

The majority of my most rigorous testing of the Svbony SV 202 ED 8 x 42 took place under a starry sky, where optical issues are easier to assess. Defocusing the bright, first-magnitude star, Capella, by rotating the dioptre ring to the end of its travel, I could see that collimation was fine. The focused star image from the left barrel was well inside the defocused anulus appearing in the right barrel. Stars remained tiny pinpoints of light across about 70-75 per cent of the field, with the last 25 per cent or so revealing some field curvature and a minor amount of astigmatism right at the field stops.

I was easily able to measure the size of the field of view in the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED. Noting that the stars Betelgeuse and Bellatrix in northern Orion are precisely 7 degrees 33’ apart, I was just unable to fit both into the same field. That’s very much in keeping with the 7 degree 30’ stated in the specifications. Good job Sybony!

Examining a bright waxing gibbous Moon in late October skies threw up a marble-white orb, peppered by grey lava seas and excellent crater detail across the southern highlands. Chromatic aberration was completely absent from the lunar limb within the large sweet spot, but did throw up some as the Moon was moved out towards the field stops. I noted some moderate drop off in illumination of the Moon at the field edges but nothing to take issue with, where only very slight refocusing was needed to bring it sharply into focus.

Back to daylight testing again now. Close focus was measured to be 2.27 metres, a little longer than advertised. I noticed some pincushion(positive) distortion looking at an off axis drain pipe. On the many very dull, overcast days we experienced throughout October, the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED threw up superlative images. Colours in autumn leaves really popped, with no contrast-robbing glare to reduce the intensity of the views. Greens, browns and red colours seem to be enhanced under these conditions. Near dusk, these colours really become enhanced! Imaging fallen leaves at close quarters(within a few metres) really shows off the exceptional sharpness of this binocular. I attribute this to unusually good correction of spherical aberration. Indeed, to my eye, better spherical aberration correction is more desirable than a slightly softer but better colour corrected image, as was manifested in the Hawke Endurance ED 8 x 42 tested alongside it. I detected no blackouts while panning large swathes of hillside with the Svbony 8 x 42 ED, unlike I encountered with the GPO Passion ED 8 x 42. I attribute this to simpler eyepiece design in the former. I’ve found blackouts to be a significant issue in many wide-angle 8 x 42s, with more aggressive field flattening strongly correlating with the frequency of blackouts encountered.

Under bright sunny conditions, the Svbony does throw up more in the way of glare, especially in the direction of the Sun, but although I’m especially partial to this kind of defect, it was never bothersome. Indeed, comparing my notes of observations conducted using a well-heeled Swarovski EL 8.5 x 42, I observed similar levels of glare under the same conditions. In another low light test, I compared and contrasted the images garnered by the GPO Passion ED and the Svbony. Observing at dusk and far into deep twilight, looking into the deeply shaded undergrowth of shrubs some 20 metres in the distance, I was unable to see any significant brightness differences between the instruments. That’s good news considering the former has a light transmission of the order of 90 per cent. Whatever the precise light transmission of the Svbony SV 202 8 x 42 ED, it’s likely to be impressively high.

Conclusions & Recommendations

Even the soft padded carry case fits the binocular with its strap attached. Cool!

They say good things come in threes. That’s certainly turned out to be a true adage in my experience with these SV 202 compact and mid-sized ED binoculars from Svbony. Furthermore, of the three I’ve tested and reported on, this new SV 202 8 x 42 ED has got to be my favourite. It’s an awesome binocular, especially considering its very modest pricing. It will make an excellent birding binocular, for example, where the finest optics are required to pick off the minutest details in your avian targets. It’s also a fine star gazing binocular with its great near edge-to-edge sharpness. It will do well in any situation; bright sunlight, or at dusk and dawn, so will also be useful as a hunting glass. I’m confident that the performance of this instrument will match or exceed pretty much any instrument currently on the market under £500, and will give £1K instruments a frightening run for their money. Any room for improvement? Yes. A few extra layers of antireflection coatings applied to the elements in the optical train will cut down the already minimal levels of glare to levels seen on binoculars in the £800 price range. Adding a hydrophobic coating on the outer lenses wouldn’t go amiss either, especially if you intend to use it in cold and wet environments. Other than that, I’d say leave well alone!

Very highly favoured!

Dr Neil English will publish a new book dedicated to binoculars: Choosing & Using Binoculars: A Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts, due out in late 2023.

De Fideli.

Zeiss Terra ED Pocket 8 x 25 Redux.

Posted on 01/10/2022 by Neil English

Zeiss Terra ED Pocket 8 x 25(China) Package.

A Work Commenced October 1 2022

Preamble

When the Zeiss Terra ED pockets were first launched, many enthusiasts were pleased to learn that they were manufactured in Japan, but as of 2020, Zeiss moved the production of these units to China, where all of the larger Terra ED models continue to be made. At first, it was the source of some confusion, with some folk chiming in to inform me that their new Terra pockets were marked “Japan,” while others showed pictures of “China” under the bridge. When I made some enquiries, I was first told by one Zeiss employee that they were still being made in Japan, but shortly thereafter they backpedalled, informing me by phone that the new Terra pocket glasses were now being made in China, leaving only their flagship Victory pockets in Japanese production.

A solidly constructed instrument, just like the Japanese-derived model.

Over the last few years, I bought in, tested and evaluated many pocket binoculars from many manufacturers, and inevitably, the build up of equipment in my house meant that I had to gift many of them to friends or sell them on – and that included my Japanese-made Zeiss Terra ED 8 x 25. But after owning and using some top pocket binoculars from Leica, including the 8 x 20 and 10 x 25 BCA models and the Ultravid 8 x 20, I gradually came to accept their limitations, as charming as they are, especially when I began to explore the larger format 8 x 30 and 8 x 32 models. The latter were simply much more comfortable and easier to use, with their bigger eye box and more comfortable handling. And as for optical versatility, the larger 30-32mm formats were in a completely different league to any pocket glass, however sophisticated. A week using my superlative Nikon E II 8 x 30 – my favourite binocular by a country mile – finally convinced me to sell off my little Ultravid 8 x 20 to help recoup some funds(I’m not a collector but an observer), but it did leave a small hole in my modest stable of instruments. I still yearned for a good quality pocket binocular for occasional use, for trips to the theatre and galleries, for travel and exploring interesting buildings in the towns and cities of Scotland and further afield. What to do? It was at this time that I thought I would give the little Terra pocket a second chance, noting that it was still selling at about the same price I paid for my first Terra – £270 – so I took the plunge and ordered a unit up from Cameracentre UK in South Wales.

The China label on view under the bridge.

When it arrived, I was pleased to see that the instrument was presented in the same presentation box my first Terra pocket came in; a sturdy fold-out arrangement, with a lovely presentation of an alpine nature scene. I was equally delighted to see that the binocular was stored inside the same hard, zip-fastened clamshell case, with a magnetic latch to boot. This was a very pleasant surprise, as a 10 x 25 Terra ED model(with a new black chassis) I bought off Amazon in 2021 only came with a soft pouch – hardly enough protection for the instrument, which I returned after not being entirely happy with its optical performance.

A closer look at the large ocular lenses on the Zeiss Terra ED 8 x 25.

The exact same strap was supplied with this new Zeiss Terra ED 8 x 25 too; another good thing, as it is of high quality and perfectly designed to support this small pocket glass(310g). Examining the instrument, I was pleased to see what I had previously observed with my Japanese-made unit. Well put together, with the same grey-black chassis as before. I liked that colour scheme, with the blue Zeiss logo located just ahead of the central focus wheel. I was relieved to see that the double hinge was tight, maybe not as tight as I recall on the Japanese unit, but tight enough. The same immaculate Zeiss multi-coatings were smoothly applied to the ocular and objective lenses, and applying a breath test on a cool, afternoon outdoors, showed that the company’s proprietary LotuTec hydrophobic coatings rapidly dispersed the condensation. Neat!

The wonderful coatings applied to the deeply recessed objectives.

The twist-up eye cups were also working perfectly, rigidly staying in position once clicked into their grooves. The dioptre adjuster – a small wheel located at the far end of the wide bridge – moved smoothly – and once adjusted, I was ready to test the optics.

Beginning with my flashlight test, I directed the light from my Iphone torch adjusted to its brightest setting into the binocular from across my living room to examine the focused image. As I noted with my Japanese model, the results showed very good suppression of internal reflections and very little diffused light around the intensely bright beam but, as before, it did show up a prominent diffraction spike, which was also unfortunately picked up by looking at some streetlamps after dark. No difference between the Japanese and Chinese-made instruments in this capacity. The little Leica glasses were much better in this regard, showing very little of diffraction spikes in comparison.

I never conducted an examination of the exit pupils on my first Terra ED pocket, so was keen to see how they fared in this unit. I’m pleased to report that the results were very good, as you can see below; both pupils presented as perfect circles, with no significant light leaks around them. Bravo!

Left exit pupil.

Right exit pupil

But things turned out even more swimmingly as I began to study the images in bright autumnal sunlight. The view was excellent; bright, sharp, lovely contrast and vivid colours – all the things I had admired in the Japanese-made unit. That’s a consequence of the Schott ED glass used in the objectives and dielectrically coated Schmidt-Pechan prisms delivering an impressive light transmission of 88 per cent. The sweet spot is very large, with only a small amount of softening near the field stops. The view is wide – 119m at 1000m(6.8 angular degrees) – better than on my Leica pockets. I judged the Terra ED’s glare suppression abilities to be very good too – significantly better than my Leica’s, as I remember, with veiling glare being especially well controlled – for a pocket glass at least. The deeply recessed objectives and highly efficient coatings applied throughout the optical train definitely work together here. The quoted eye relief of 16mm is generous enough to enjoy the entire field using glasses, if that’s your thing. It’s also water and fog proof, making it suitable for the most adverse weather conditions Mother Nature is likely to throw at you.

If I’m being honest, the large focus wheel on the Zeiss Terra ED 8 x 25 was, if anything, a little smoother than on my Ultravid 8 x 20. Just over one full turn clockwise brings you from closest focus(~ 1.9 m) to beyond infinity. Indeed, the wheel moved further beyond infinity than many other binoculars I’ve tested. Surely that means that with a bit of clever tweaking(which can be done!), the focuser can be re-adjusted to render the close focus even shorter, but that’s for another day.

Comparing the Nikon E II 8 x 30 to the Zeiss Terra ED 8 x 25(right).

In good lighting conditions, and taking into account its considerably smaller field, the Zeiss Terra pocket throws up very comparable views to my Nikon EII 8 x 30, with broadly similar levels of contrast and sharpness. Colour tone is noticeably warmer in the little Zeiss Terra though, and following the course of a long, straight section of country road, the compact Nikon Porro easily showed greater levels of contouring(stereopsis), as I expected from its more widely spaced objectives. This is a quick and easy way to see the advantages of Porro prism binoculars over their roof prism counterparts. The fact that you can more easily discern the bumps and depressions in the road is proof enough that the Nikon shows more spatial information than the little Zeiss roof prism binocular.

Another significant difference between the models is comfort and ease of viewing; eye placement is a lot more finicky with the Zeiss, requiring the precise alignment of one’s eyes with the barrels, and the smaller exit pupil requires a little more skill to find a satisfactory viewing experience. But a 3.1mm exit pupil is much easier to engage with than the 2.5mm pupils on my Leica glasses. None of this was an issue with the little Nikon 8 x 30 though: you simply bring it to your eyes for instant gratification, and drink up the enormous 8.8 degree field in all its optical glory! Having said all that though, I was very impressed how well the little Terra handled the affair. It’s a pocket binocular after all!

A quality experience.

So, in conclusion, should I be worried about the fact that the new Terra ED pockets are made in China? For me, the answer to that question is definitely no. It’s every bit as good as the Japanese unit I once had. Properly looked after, it ought to give many years of service. After all, it’s still a Zeiss binocular; and you can tell that from the instant you gaze through it!

Happy Camper!

Neil English has tested more pocket binoculars than you could shake a proverbial stick at. Find out more from his up-and-coming book: Choosing & Using Binoculars: A Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Nature Enthusiasts, published by Springer Nature in late 2023.

De Fideli.

Book Review: Return of the God Hypothesis by Stephen C. Meyer.

Posted on 22/06/2022 by Neil English

A Work first Published in Touchstone Magazine March/April 2022

Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe

by Stephen C. Meyer

HarperOne, 2021

(576 pages, $29.99, hardcover)

Return of the God Hypothesis is the latest work from the distinguished philosopher of science, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington, and one of the world’s leading proponents of intelligent design (ID). In it, Dr. Meyer shows that science at its most cutting edge has thoroughly vindicated those who have clung to a deeply held belief in a personal God who operates beyond space and time. From the earliest moments of the Big Bang, to the formation of the first living cells on earth, and on up to the present day, the extraordinary fine-tuning we observe in all realms of nature shows us that God has truly left his signature on the very large and the very small.

The thesis of this book is that modern scientific discoveries testify to the idea that a mind vastly superior to our own not only created the universe, but also purposefully arranged for it to have precisely the properties required for human life to exist and flourish. Meyer examines three seminal scientific discoveries to support his thesis: (1) that organisms contain biological information whose source cannot be merely physical or material; (2) that the laws of physics have been finely tuned to sustain life in general and human life in particular; and (3) that the universe had a specific beginning in space and time.

Building on his previous best-selling works, Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, which examined the implications of biological information, Meyer now brings cosmic fine tuning and the origination of the universe in a Hot Big Bang singularity into the discussion to argue persuasively that the single best explanation for all three phenomena is a personal God who transcends the spacetime continuum and has intervened throughout cosmic history to ensure that creatures shaped in his image would one day appear on earth.

Theistic Cosmology: The Big Bang

These three ideas were not birthed in a vacuum. The scientific revolution, Meyer asserts, began in Reformation Europe and was firmly moored in theistic principles. Quite simply, to study the universe was to get to know the mind of God. That’s why so many of the founding fathers of science—Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, and René Descartes, to name but a few—framed their scientific knowledge in terms of “understanding God’s thoughts after him.” They all saw within the pages of Scripture a God who set boundaries for the tides and the winds and ordained the orderly motion of the moon, stars, and planets, a law-giving God who limits human life span to curtail the spread of personal evil within any individual.

But as the Renaissance gave way to the Age of Enlightenment, scientists abandoned these theistic principles and sought instead to formulate a purely materialistic narrative of cosmogenesis. The great celestial mechanician, Pierre-Simon Laplace, declared in the eighteenth century that there was no need to invoke a deity to explain the complex motions of the celestial bodies, and Charles Darwin posited in the nineteenth that humans evolved from lower animals through a mindless process he called evolution. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw scientific materialism reach its zenith and even spill over into political and psychological discourse in the works of such atheists as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

Yet with the inexorable march of science into the twentieth century, theism came back with a vengeance, starting with Edwin P. Hubble’s discovery that the universe was constantly expanding. This was followed by Georges Lemaitre’s discovery of evidence for a sigular cosmic event which brought the physical world—space, time, matter, and energy—into existence all at once at a particular point in the finite past. Lemaitre’s theory—for he was both a Catholic priest and a prominent physicist—came to be known as the Big Bang theory.

Meyer relates how many of the great astronomical minds of the era found such origin stories “philosophically repugnant” and went to great lengths to repudiate them. In fact, the distinguished British astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle coined the phrase “Big Bang” as a term of derision. He countered the idea of the universe having a definite beginning with his own “steady state” theory of a universe that was infinitely old. This was the conservative view among scientific materialists at the time.

But as militant as Hoyle became in advancing his steady-state cosmology, the evidence for the Big Bang grew ever stronger as the twentieth century wore on. And some distinguished scientists, such as the Mount Wilson astronomer Allan Sandage, began to see the unavoidably theistic implications of a universe that had a beginning. Ultimately, the evidence for the Big Bang theory led Sandage to faith in Christ at the end of his life.

Theistic Biochemistry: Genetic Information

In exploring the current state of origin-of-life research, Meyer shows that despite the best attempts of materialist scientists to re-create the first chemical steps toward life, they have been unable to do so, but in the process have inadvertently shown that an inordinate amount of intelligent design—far in excess of current human capability—is required to bring a living organism into existence. Indeed, by calling on experts in organic chemistry, Meyer shows that even the first steps toward creating a biomolecular assemblage require many intervening stages that cannot be achieved naturalistically. He writes:

The discovery of the functional digital information in DNA and RNA molecules in even the simplest living cells provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a role in the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living organism.

The thorny question of life’s origin leads Meyer to explore an even more fundamental problem for scientists who hold to a strictly materialistic narrative of how we got here. He doesn’t shy away from asking where the stupendous amounts of new genetic information came from that are needed to build complex cells and new body plans. He shows that even the most hard-nosed evolutionary biologists duck that question time and time again because no rational answer is in sight.

Theistic Physics: Fine Tuning

Moreover, it turns out that we live in precisely the kind of universe that can allow living things to exist in the first place, not to mention allowing human life to flourish. Specifically, if the strengths of the various forces of nature or the properties of the particles comprising the material universe were only very slightly different, we simply wouldn’t exist at all. This is known as the fine-tuning problem. Meyer reminds us that some of the best minds in the industry have been thinking deeply about it.

The distinguished theoretical physicist Sir John Polkinghorne believes that cosmic fine-tuning provides very powerful evidence of design. Brian Josephson, another British Nobel Prize-winning physicist, has stated frankly that he is 80 percent confident that some kind of intelligent agency was involved in the creation of life. The same evidence caused the outspoken philosopher Antony Flew to reject his own long-time atheistic teachings, which he had clung to for most of his life, in favor of deism. As Christian astronomer Luke Barnes writes: “Fine tuning suggests that, at the deepest level that physics has reached, the universe is well put together. . . . The whole system seems well thought out, something that someone planned and created.”

Nevertheless, some materialist physicists have invoked an entirely speculative concept to explain away the creation of our fine-tuned universe: namely, the weird and wonderful “multiverse,” or as some refer to it, the “many worlds hypothesis.” Our universe appears the way it is, these advocates claim, because it is just one among an infinite number of universes whose physical laws and material properties are all different. Logic dictates that a small number of these universes must contain conditions that are ripe for the development of life and human intelligence, and ours just happens to be one of them. No creator God needed.

Meyer calls upon some towering figures in the philosophy of physics to demolish the multiverse hypothesis. Roger Gordon, for instance, has compared the attempt to promote the multiverse theory to “trying to dig the Grand Canyon to fill in a pothole.” Other intellectuals have delivered their own verdicts on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Richard Swinburne of Oxford University likes to invoke Occam’s Razor in deciding whether a theistic or multiverse worldview is more likely. Since theistic beliefs require only one explanatory entity, he argues, over the multitude of entities required for the multiverse, the theistic model is more rational and more likely to be true.

Cosmic Gerrymandering

Desperate attempts have also been made by influential cosmologists to avoid the obvious theistic implications of a universe that had a definite beginning. In particular, Meyer uses his considerable skills in philosophy to debunk the lofty-sounding proclamations of celebrity cosmologists such as Lawrence Krauss, the late Stephen Hawking, and others, who have sold millions of books with headline-grabbing titles like A Universe from Nothing and The Grand Design.

Meyer also examines the technical details of the real physics underlying their claims. For example, he notes that Hawking ducks the issue of a beginning by introducing “imaginary time” into the equations of general relativity. While these modifications do seem to avoid a singularity, his critics have pointed out that they are merely mathematical constructs that do not comport with physical reality. Hawking also introduces ad hoc treatments that appear simply to have been motivated by his philosophic disliking of a first cause.

Meyer lays out similar devastating arguments against other theorists who have waded in on this issue, especially Lawrence Krauss and Max Tegmark. Above all, Meyer shows that while these men may be brilliant scientists, they turn out to be very poor philosophers.

If God, Which God?

If, as Meyer asserts, the God hypothesis is the single best explanation for why the universe is the way it is, can we then infer anything about the nature of that deity? Meyer discusses the three main possibilities: pantheism, deism, and theism.

Pantheism asserts that God is the totality of all of nature, the Brahman of the Eastern religions. Meyer shows that pantheism cannot account for the cosmic fine-tuning we observe, because the deity that created the universe must necessarily transcend space and time. All the great religious texts of the Orient, however, describe a deity who must have begun to exist only after the universe came into existence.

Deism, on the other hand, posits a transcendent God, but it denies any involvement of that God in the workings of nature after the beginning. In other words, God somehow front-loaded the laws of nature so as to guarantee that creatures like us would some day emerge, but he then stepped back and let things proceed on their own.

The actual scientific evidence we have, however, indicates that God has played an active role in his creation throughout time. For example, vast amounts of new information had to have been introduced when the first complex animal body plans appeared during the Cambrian Explosion, some half-billion years ago. The fossil record shows clear evidence of mass extinctions followed rapidly by the appearance of entirely novel forms of life. That comports with a God who is always working, as the Lord Jesus said: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working” (John 5:17).

Although Meyer concentrates on just three issues in this book—fine tuning, the origin of biological information, and the singularity at the beginning of time—there are other natural phenomena that also point towards a creator God. The hard problem of consciousness, for example, is still a profound mystery, especially for those who hold to a materialistic or evolutionary world view, yet it fits neatly into a theistic framework.

Can scientific research go a step further and trace a path from theism to Jesus Christ? While Meyer is a Christian, he does not address that question in this book, at least not directly. Perhaps that discussion will become part of Meyer’s next literary project? If so, it will certainly be worth reading, too!

Dr. Neil English is busy writing his latest book, Choosing Binoculars: A Guide for Stargazers, Birders and Outdoor Enthusiasts, which will hit the bookshelves in late 2023.

De Fideli.

UK Woke Watch.

Posted on 15/04/2022 by Neil English

An essay first published in Salvo Magazine Vol 59

As America goes, so goes the rest of the world. There’s a great deal of truth to that saying, especially now that we live in an era of 24-7 news, where ideas and movements spread faster than the Covid-19 virus. The rise of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, cultural Marxism and the Woke Revolution has politicized many institutions across the United States and has now reached all the way across the Western world, where it is now influencing liberal democracies like Australia, New Zealand, the nations which comprise the European Union, and here in the UK.

Wokeness is political correctness gone mad. It’s a new secular religion with ‘social justice’ being its new god, and ‘cancel culture’ its military wing. Its despotic power seeks to make western institutions jettison conservative mores and lose faith in their own ideals. The defining characteristics of wokeness are arrogance, ignorance and irrationality in equal measure.

Not long after we saw the horrific pictures on our TV screens of statues being torn down across the USA throughout the summer of 2020, violent protesters in the city of Bristol, UK, toppled a statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th century slave trader and dumped it into Bristol Harbor. UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, quickly condemned their actions in a tweet;

“People have a right to protest peacefully & while observing social distancing but they have no right to attack the police. These demonstrations have been subverted by thuggery – and they are a betrayal of the cause they purport to serve. Those responsible will be held to account¹.”

The events in Bristol triggered the removal of several other statues across the UK including, Robert Milligan, Thomas Guy and Sir Robert Clayton². Not content with removing the memory of slave traders from our streets, the same mob defaced a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, Westminster, which had to be boarded up by police².

Snowflakes

Our hallowed educational institutions have also become fertile breeding grounds for the woke movement. At Oriel College Oxford, an angry mob called for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, insisting that he was a white supremacist, colonialist and racist. Although Oriel College did agree to remove the statue, the decision was reversed owing to the financial cost of undertaking such a measure⁴.

But Oxford University represents the tip of the iceberg. Today, some 90 per cent of British Universities have actively banned or cancelled guest speakers because their ‘controversial’ views offend them⁵. Over the last several years it has become such a problem that the UK government had to enforce new laws prohibiting this vicious cancel culture, with fines of up to £500,000 should they continue to de-platform people⁶.

Yet the woke movement has penetrated many more of our national institutions in the UK, including the National Trust, the Church of England, the Police, the BBC and the British Army. In the wake of the George Floyd tragedy, the National Trust sped up the publication of a 2018-commissioned study linking many of the grand houses under its wing to slavery and colonialism⁷. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with learning about our colonial past, but when the National Trust insisted that all volunteers must undergo ‘unconscious bias training,⁷ it led to some resignations in protest. They also pushed the wearing of LGBTQ+ rainbow badges and lanyards on its employees to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain, removing those individuals from interacting with the public who conscientiously objected to wearing them⁷.

The Church of England seems equally keen to preach the woke gospel. During the Black Lives Matter riots in the USA, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commissioned a new Church of England guidance⁸ suggesting that artefacts linked to slavery and colonialism could be removed from churches simply because some people might find them ‘disturbing.’

In August 2021, the UK Police Force unveiled a new fleet of cars adorned with the LGBTQ+ rainbow to ‘fight social injustice.’ The move was received with almost universal scorn, with some commentators calling them ‘Clown Cars’ that will only encourage more criminals onto the streets. Perhaps the most scathing rebuttal came from Harry Miller, a former police officer and founder of the campaign group, Fair Cop. Speaking to the Telegraph, Miller said, “We don’t see the Met with special cars for knife crime, even though the number of stabbings in London is appalling. The problem is that the second you see a rainbow car, you know that it is a police force that has made its mind up about some very contentious issues. You no longer see a police car or a police officer who is there to support everyone, from all political persuasions, without fear or favor. They have literally tied their colours to the mast and painted their cars with their political leanings. They are painting rainbows on their cars when we have figures showing that only seven per cent of violent crime ends in a prosecution. They have moved from policing crime to policing thoughts and speech, because it is easier⁹.”

The BBC, that long-trusted bastion of journalistic excellence has also gone woke. The corporation produced a video called “Understanding Sexual and Gender identities¹⁰,” in which they claimed there were 100 different genders! Thankfully, after a storm of protest, they removed the video from their platform. Now the BBC are conducting a gender census to see which of their employees identify as male, female or non-binary to better address ‘gender-related pay gaps.’ Furthermore, they recently tweeted that they will not tolerate any dissent on transgender issues and are willing to inform the police concerning the most egregious ‘offenders.¹¹‘ Not surprisingly, that also sparked a large public backlash, with people complaining that the corporation was just wasting taxpayers’ money.

Finally, in one of the sickest moves yet enacted on British soil, the thoroughly immoral leftist, devolved nationalist Scottish Government is introducing new legislation allowing children as young as four to undergo gender transition, without parental consent, as well as mandating schools to include transgender literature on the curriculum¹². Although the move was almost universally described as ‘risible’ and ‘shocking,’ even by the mainstream press, there is no effective political opposition to the nationalists’ woke agenda to stop them in their tracks.

Rebels Without a Clue

So, just like the USA, Britain faces the same war on wokeness that is tearing society apart at the seams. Seen in a Christian light, God has given them over to a Romans 1 ‘reprobate mind.’ But there are welcome signs that the Brits are fighting back, by launching anti-woke TV channels like GB News, and a small number of determined and influential journalists who refuse to be silenced by the woke mob. Furthermore, the British government has summarily dismissed and banned the teaching of Marxist concepts such as critical race theory, intersectionality and white privilege in UK schools, deeming these ideologies harmful to a multi-cultural British society¹³. You can hit the BBC where it hurts them simply by switching off. Personally, I wouldn’t trust them even with the weather. But a lot of resistance to this immoral movement is also being fostered in sound parental guidance, as well as through the exercising of the general public’s democratic right to air its concerns to local politicians. Though it’s probably too late to turn the tide, let’s hope more brave individuals will join the dissenting ranks to stave off the worst instances of ‘wokery’ in the UK!

Neil English has put down roots in Scotland and is the author of seven books on amateur and professional astronomy. His 650-page magnum opus, Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, explores the history of telescopic astronomy from a Christian perspective.

References

De Fideli.

Earth Story.

Posted on 13/03/2022 by Neil English

Chosen Planet

An Essay Originally Published in Salvo Magazine Volume 51

Updated periodically as new science emerges

For this is what the Lord says—

he who created the heavens,

he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth,

he founded it; he did not create it to be empty,

but formed it to be inhabited— he says:

“I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Isaiah 45: 18

Just a few short decades ago, the Earth was considered to be an ordinary planet, orbiting an ordinary star, lost in a vast galaxy of other stars, amid myriad other galaxies populating the Cosmos. Mindless processes produced the first living organisms, we were told, which slowly evolved over the eons to produce creatures like us¹. This secular myth was accepted hook line and sinker by the uneducated masses after its promotion by God-denying ‘high priests’, including the late Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, and mindlessly parroted by a generation of science journalists unwilling to dig any deeper. Yet, with the exponential rise of human knowledge, this worldview is being radically over-turned by an avalanche of new science, that paints an entirely different picture of our world: one in which its exceptional properties for supporting a long-lived biosphere for the express benefit of humanity in particular, is coming to the fore; where life itself ‘terraformed’ the Earth under Divine instruction.

An Anomalous Solar System

Many lines of evidence show that the Earth is old; 4.543 billion years with an uncertainty of just one per cent. But the circumstances under which our planetary system was shaped were very unusual. Formed from the gravitational collapse of a vast cloud of gas and dust, the proto-solar system condensed into a relatively thin disk with the neonatal Sun at its center. The inventory of elements endowed to the solar system might have turned out to be much like any other were it not for the presence of at least two relatively close-by supernova events² which helped eject it from a nursery of other stars, but which also enriched the primordial solar system with relatively large quantities of heat-generating radioactive elements such as aluminum 26, thorium and uranium³. The aluminum 26, with its short half-life of 730,000 years, provided enough thermal energy to remove excess levels of volatiles including water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide which would have scuppered the future emergence of living creatures on our world. In contrast, the very dense and long-lived radioactive elements like uranium and thorium sank to the center of the primordial earth, where their prodigious heat has kept the planet in a geologically active state over billions of years.

The most recent research on star formation shows that the Sun is far from being an average star⁴. Indeed that distinction goes to stars with masses roughly 50 per cent less massive than the Sun, with luminosities only 5 per cent as bright and surface temperatures of 3600K⁴, comprising some 80 per cent of all the stars in the Universe. Many more are smaller L dwarfs that are unable to fuse hydrogen in their cores, or larger stars than the Sun that have much shorter lifespans. In the words of the University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank;

“Please stop calling our Sun an “average star. It is philosophically dubious and astronomically incorrect.^{4 ”}

The Moon-forming event, which is thought to have occurred about 100 million years after the neonatal Earth formed⁵, in a highly improbable, oblique collision with a Mars-sized object, helped remove still more volatiles from the primordial Earth, allowing it to eventually form relatively shallow oceans where the continental land-masses could eventually emerge from the sea floor. The debris from this cataclysmic event formed a relatively large Moon in close proximity to the Earth, helping to stabilize its orbital inclination and over time, to slow down the rotation rate of our planet from just 5 hours shortly after the Moon’s formation, to its present leisurely rotation period of 24 hours.

For the first few hundred million years after its formation, the Earth would have looked black and golden from the vantage of outer space, from the vast amounts of solidified magna cooling on its surface as well as the prodigious levels of volcanic activity spewing out hot lava from the planet’s interior. Frequent collision events with smaller space debris like asteroids would also have exacerbated these hellish conditions, but eventually the prodigious levels of water vapor outgassed from its interior would have transformed our lava dominated planet into a blue water world still devoid of continental landmasses.⁵ But just as soon as the Earth cooled down enough to enable liquid water to flow on its surface, life appeared.

Life Terraforms the Planet

The standard evolutionary story is that life began as simple organisms and gradually progressed to more complex forms with the slow march of time, but the best scientific evidence now suggests that this life was already complex and biochemically sophisticated. This is based on isotopic evidence^6,7 from the analysis of ratios of carbon and sulfur isotopes in sedimentary rocks laid down over 3.5 billion years ago. Since these biochemical processes have an absolute requirement for highly complex protein enzymes to have been present, it completely eludes an evolutionary explanation. Then why did our Creator choose to begin Earth’s life story with microbes? The answer has less to do with evolution than it has with chemical sophistication. The simple answer is that microbes are, by some considerable margin, the hardiest creatures ever to have lived on our planet.

Microbes are the die-hards of the living world, being capable of surviving in very hot and cold temperatures, high and low pH environments, and can even thrive in a cocktail of toxic chemicals and radioactive environments. Once the planet cooled enough to allow the first microbes to survive, they were set to work removing a plethora of poisonous substances from the primordial Earth. In these early times, the Earth’s surface would have had large amounts of so-called vital poisons, substances that are required in small amounts for more complex life to thrive, but in higher concentrations, can prove lethal; substances like iron, copper, zinc, molybdenum, arsenic, boron, selenium and iodine, to name but a few. In their soluble forms such vital poisons would have stunted any new life forms coming on the scene but in chemically transforming these elements⁸ into insoluble ores and minerals, microbes not only removed such vital poisons from the Earth’s water environments but also formed large deposits of the valuable minerals that are now mined for their use in high technology devices. This also makes sense from a creation point of view, as more complex organisms are far more sensitive to these toxins than microbes are. One other benefit that life brought to the Earth is that it greatly enriched the planet’s mineral and gemstone tally. According to Dr. Robert Hazen, a world-leading mineralogist, Earth has the greatest diversity of mineral species of any body in the Solar System.⁵ Over 4,600 mineral species have been identified on Earth. In contrast, Mars probably has about 500 and Venus about 1,000 at the most. What’s more, Hazen discovered that life processes formed about two-thirds of Earth’s mineral species⁵.

Recent oxygen isotope evidence shows that ongoing plate tectonic activity produced nearly all the continental landmasses by about 2.5 billion years ago.⁹ The fact that just 29 per cent of the planet’s surface area is covered by dry land appears to be highly fine-tuned. Greater land surface areas would induce too little precipitation in the interior of those ancient continents, preventing life from gaining a hold in these places. On the other hand, land areas significantly less than 29 per cent would not be able to re-cycle enough valuable nutrients between the land, the sea and the atmosphere to maintain a healthy biosphere.

The earliest lifeforms extracted energy from these minerals without the need for molecular oxygen, but the introduction of photosynthetic microbes radically transformed the early biosphere, paving the way for the introduction of advanced lifeforms. One way to get a handle on how early oxygenic photosynthesis occurred on Earth is to study so-called Banded Iron Formations (BIFs)comprised of iron rich clays containing magnetite and hematite. The early oceans had high concentrations of soluble iron, but when it reacts with oxygen, it forms an insoluble rust-like substance that serves as iron ore today.

Such studies reveal that BIFs were first laid down about 3.0 billion years ago, continuing up to about 1.8 billion years ago.¹⁰ This coincides with the microfossil record of life, which shows that oxygen-dependent complex cellular life (the so-called Eukaryotes) made its first appearance around 2 billion years ago.¹¹The rise in atmospheric oxygen also created the ozone layer, which protected future life on land from the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The emergence of oxygen-generating photosynthesis had other effects that are not immediately obvious. When the Sun was born, it was about 30 per cent less luminous than it is today, but as it aged, its luminosity increased with the result that the amount of thermal energy received by the planet also increased. Photosynthetic organisms removed great amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by absorbing carbon dioxide and generating oxygen which reacted rapidly with another greenhouse gas, methane. In so doing, photosynthetic organisms served to counteract the tendency of the aging Sun to overheat the planet.¹²The remains of these and other unicellular creatures settled to the bottom of the oceans where they formed vast sediments that were compressed over time to produce natural gas and oil reserves so important to human civilization today.

After a long cooling phase coinciding with the formation of the supercontinent, Rhodinia⁵, signs of the first large(macroscopic) multicellular lifeforms appeared about 600 million years ago in an event known to palaeontologists as the Avalon Explosion, where scientists have uncovered the first evidence of simple animal lifeforms. It is unclear however whether these bizarre creatures were animals or plants but what is clear is that in the space of a short 410,000 year period starting around 541 million years ago, 80 per cent of all existing animal forms appeared in the fossil record, with no credible evolutionary antecedents^3,22. Paleontologists studying the so-called Cambrian Explosion have found no transitional forms in layers immediately pre-dating this period in Earth history. Moreover, the land was being prepared for the arrival of vascular plants by fungi who began breaking down rocks into soil as early as about 1000 million years ago¹⁴. It is difficult to conceive how any blind process like Darwinian evolution could produce such stunning biological complexity and diversity in such a short space of time without any foresight.

In recent times, a greater appreciation of the interplay between life and plate tectonics has been appreciated. Without plate tectonics, our planet wouldn’t have a climate stable enough to support life over billions of years of time. That’s because plate tectonics takes center stage as a planetary thermostat in a process called the “carbonate-silicate” cycle.¹³ Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater to form carbonic acid, which dissolves silicate rocks. The by-products of this erosion, or “weathering,” are conveyed to the oceans where they are ingested by organisms—such as tiny planktonic foraminifera—and incorporated into limestone (calcium carbonate) shells. When those creatures die, they fall to the bottom of the ocean and pile up as sediments, creating new raw materials used by humanity. The introduction of life on planet Earth also increases the amount of water subducted into the mantle, where it functions as a kind of lubricant, facilitating motions between plates. It also lowers the melting point in the mantle, which leads to more volcanism and therefore more continent building. So, without life speeding up the weathering at the surface as well as the sedimentation rate on the sea floor, the fraction of the surface covered by continents would be far smaller.

Plate tectonics has other, hitherto unforeseen consequences for the maintenance of the Earth’s strong magnetic field. By accelerating the transfer of heat to the surface, plate tectonics induces convection in the liquid iron outer core of our planet. What’s more, it’s the dynamic outer core that generates our planet’s magnetic field, which protects Earth’s atmosphere and oceans from excessive erosion and desiccation from the solar wind as well as all surface life from dangerous cosmic rays.

The fossil record attests to several mass extinction events that occurred over the long history of our planet.¹⁴Research has shown that these devastating events are followed by equally spectacular mass speciation events, uncannily similar to the scenarios described in Psalm 104. According to Christian astronomer, Dr. Hugh Ross, these events proved crucial for maximizing both the quantity and longevity of Earth’s life.¹⁵ By ensuring that the right quantities and kinds of life are present at the right times, our Creator employed these organisms to remove the just-right quantities of greenhouse gases from Earth’s atmosphere so as to compensate for the Sun’s increasing brightness. According to Ross, one would expect God to intervene periodically to remove life no longer appropriate for compensating for a brightening Sun and then replace it with life that is more efficient at doing so. Finally, in the last few hundred million years, vast deposits of coal and oil were produced from the remains of plant life that flourished on land during the Carboniferous and Permian (360 to 250 million years ago) periods, which was necessary for the launch of the industrial revolution.

Jewel Planet

Seen in the light of these new scientific discoveries, it is apparent that the Earth is a highly fine-tuned planet that has sustained a very stable environment over 4 billion years for the flourishing of life. And that same life transformed our world beyond recognition to make it ideal for humans to thrive in. This consensus is now being expressed by other scientists, who have noted Earth’s amazing properties. Influential books like Donald Brownlee and Peter Ward’s Rare Earth¹⁸: why complex life is are in the Universe, David Waltham’s Lucky Planet¹⁹, John Gribbin’s Alone in the Universe²⁰ as well as Privileged Planet²¹by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Far from being a humdrum planet orbiting an ordinary star, the Earth was designed by a mind vastly more advanced than our own. And I give God all the glory!

Neil English is the author of several books in amateur astronomy. His latest historical work, Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy, is published by Springer-Nature.

References

Sagan, C. Cosmos, MacDonald Futura Publishers, London, 1981.
Eric Gaidos et al., “26Al and the Formation of the Solar System from a Molecular Cloud Contaminated by Wolf-Rayet Winds,” Astrophysical Journal 696 (May 10, 2009): 1854–63.
Ross, H., Elemental Evidence of Earth’s Divine Design; https://reasons.org/explore/publications/nrtb-e-zine/read/nrtb-e-zine/2010/03/01/elemental-evidence-of-earth-s-divine-design
Frank, A., What is the “Avergae Star” like? Hint: It’s not like our Sun: https://bigthink.com/13-8/average-star/

Hazen, R. The Story of Earth, Penguin, 2012.
Allen P. Nutman et al., “≥3700 Ma Pre-Metamorphic Dolomite Formed by Microbial Mediation in the Isua Supracrustal Belt (W. Greenland): Simple Evidence for Early Life?” Precambrian Research 183, no. 4 (December 15, 2010): 725–37.
Yanan Shen et al, “Isotopic Evidence for Microbial Sulphate Reduction in the Early Archaean Era,” Nature 410 (March 1, 2001): 77–81.
Gadd, G.M., Metals, minerals and microbes: geomicrobiology and bioremediation https://mic.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.037143-0;jsessionid=CfnAVoIxE-Nxln81QM-D2S0N.x-sgm-live-02
N. Bindeman et al., “Rapid Emergence of Subaerial Landmasses and Onset of Modern Hydrologic Cycle 2.5 Billion Years Ago,” Nature 557 (May 23, 2018): 545–48, https://doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0131-1.
James, H.L. (1983). Distribution of banded iron-formation in space and time. Developments in Precambrian Geology, 6, 471–490.
Simonetta Gribaldo et al., “The Origin of Eukaryotes and Their Relationship with the Archaea: Are We at a Phylogenomic Impasse?” Nature Reviews Microbiology 8 (2010): 743–52.
Ross, H. Improbable Planet, Baker Books, 2016.
Ross, H., Cambrian Explosion Becomes More Explosive: https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/cambrian-explosion-becomes-more-explosive
https://theconversation.com/complex-life-may-only-exist-because-of-millions-of-years-of-groundwork-by-ancient-fungi-117526
Walker, J.C.G., Hays, P.B., & Kasting, J.F. A negative feedback mechanism for the long-term stabilization of Earth’s surface temperature. Journal of Geophysical Research 86, 9776-9782 (1981).
Melott & Bambach, “Do Periodicities in Extinction—With Possible Astronomical Connections—Survive a Revision of the Geological Timescale?” Astrophysical Journal 773 (August 10, 2013).
Ross, H. Mass Extinction Periodicity Design; https://www.reasons.org/explore/publications/nrtb-e-zine/read/nrtb-e-zine/2013/12/01/mass-extinction-periodicity-design
Brownlee, D. & Ward, P., Rare Earth, Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, Springer, 2000
Waltham, D., Lucky Planet, Icon Books, 2015
J., Alone in the Universe; Why our Planet is Unique, John Wiley, 2011.
Gonzalez, G. & Richards, J, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery, Regnery Publishing, 2004.
Ross, H., Cambrian Explosion Becomes More Explosive: https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/cambrian-explosion-becomes-more-explosive

De Fideli.

Product Review: Canon IS 8 x 20.

Posted on 22/01/2022 by Neil English

The Canon IS 8 x 20 package.

A Worked Commenced January 21 2022

Product: Canon IS 8 x 20

Country of Manufacture: Taiwan

Field of View: 115m@1000m (6.6 angular degrees)

Exit Pupil: 2.5mm

Eye Relief: 13.5mm

Coatings: Fully Broadband Multi-Coated, Super Spectra Coating

Dioptre Compensation: +/- 5.9

Water Proof: No

Nitrogen Purged: No

ED Glass: No

Close Focus: 2m advertised( 2.02 m measured)

Dimensions: W/H 11.8/14.2cm

Weight: 420g(without battery)

Supplied Accessories: Soft carry case, padded neck strap, instruction manual, 1x CR123A lithium battery, eyepiece covers, warranty card.

Price(UK): £425.70

In a recent blog, I outlined my experiences of an older model Canon IS 10 x 30. I was impressed by the image stabilisation technology on that unit and described its optical quality as very good but not outstanding. These tests got me curious about two smaller models recently introduced by the giant Japanese camera manufacturer; a 8 x 20 IS and 10 x 20 IS, which promised even better ergonomics than the older generation 8 x 25 IS and 10 x 30 IS models. So I decided to buy and test the smaller 8 x 20 IS, the subject of this new review.

First Impressions

The Canon 8 x 20 IS arrived neatly boxed away inside its soft carry case, together with a comprehensive user manual, lithium ion battery, and warranty card. Weighing in at 420g without the battery, the binocular has a tough, grey coloured plastic chassis which I immediately found much easier to handle than the larger 10 x 30 IS, which tips the scales at 660g in comparison.

Like the older generation models, the new Canon 8 x 20 IS has soft rubber eye cups that can be folded down for use with spectacles. Turning next to the objectives, I was quite surprised but very happy to see that the 20mm objectives on the Canon were very deeply recessed; far more deeply in fact than any other binocular I’ve thus far encountered. Doubtless, this helps quite a lot in keeping stray light, dust and rain at bay; a good thing surely, as these units are not waterproof.

The small, 20mm objectives on the Canon IS 8 x 20 are very deeply recessed to protect them from the elements and stray light.

The focus wheel on the Canon IS 8 x 20 appears to be made of metal. It has very good grip and is large enough to access and manoeuvre even while wearing thick winter gloves. The dioptre compensation is achieved in the traditional way, by rotating the base of the right eye cup until you achieve your desired setting.

The single CR123A lithium ion battery is easily installed in a pull-out compartment located under the focus wheel. The image stabilisation is achieved by pressing a small button offset onto the right barrel of the binocular, causing a small green LED to light up while it is being activated. The instruction manual states that the battery has a lifetime of about 12 hours at room temperature but is reduced to just 8 hours at -10C. During my tests I never encountered any problems using the image stabilisation function, which involved a few hours of testing at temperatures ranging from +20C to -2C.

The objective lenses on both the ocular and objectives have very nice and evenly applied anti-reflection coatings. The objective coatings have a pale, greenish tint while those on the eyepieces appeared magenta in daylight.

Note the magenta coloured anti-reflection coatings on the ocular lenses. One can also see the rectangular shaped battery compartment on the instrument immediately under the focus wheel.

Ergonomics

In comparison with my experiences with the older generation Canon IS 10 x 30, the smaller 8 x 20 model was much easier to use in my medium sized hands. For example, it was considerably easier to hold it with two hands, and accessing the off centre stabilisation button did not present any problems.

The large, centrally placed focus wheel turns very smoothly, with excellent inertia and with no play while rotating clockwise or anti-clockwise.

The textured, metal focus wheel on the Canon IS 8 x 20 rotates smoothly with no backlash, stiction or free play.

The rather old-school, flexi-rubber eyecups proved reasonably comfortable when they were pressed against my eyes. When I folded them down to test the eye relief for spectacle wearers however, I found it difficult to image the entire field of view using my varifocals. I think this an area that Canon can improve on in the future.

The old school soft rubber eyecups fold down for use with eye glasses.

Playing around with the Canon IS 8 x 20 in my hands, and comparing it to a conventional 8 x 20 pocket binocular, I felt the latter was much easier to achieve a stable, comfortable grip with. So, while the newer 8 x 20 IS units are a big improvement over say a larger 10 x 30 IS, they are still nowhere near the comfort levels I experience using a conventional, dual-hinge 8 x 20 glass.

The Leica Ultravid BR 8 x 20 (left) is much easier to handle than the Canon IS 8 x 20(right).

Optical Assessment

I was quite impressed with the optical quality of the older generation Canon IS 10 x 30 but my tests on the newer IS 8 x 20 showed it to be a good deal better again. Conducting a bright light torch test showed no annoying internal reflections, diffraction spikes or diffused light. Indeed, it was a good step up from the results I achieved with the older, Canon IS 10 x 30 in this regard. No doubt, this is largely attributed to the improved ‘Super Spectra’ coatings applied to its optical elements.

Looking through the Canon IS 8 x 20 during dull, overcast winter weather, I was immediately impressed with the excellent sharpness, contrast and brightness of the image from edge to centre. Like the older models, these smaller Canon IS binoculars have built-in field flattening lenses which reduces field curvature and other off axis aberrations when viewing a target away from the centre of the field.

Indeed, in low light tests I conducted alongside my excellent Leica 8 x 20 BR Ultravid, I judged the Canon IS 8x 20 be equally bright, but just falling short of the sharpness of the Leica. Glare suppression however, was noticeably better in the Canon though. This is probably attributed to the very deeply recessed objective lenses on the Canon IS binocular in contrast to the Leica, the objectives of which are not at all recessed( maximising its compactness) and so are at the mercy of intrusions of stray light.

One aspect of the view was less engaging with the Canon IS 8 x 20 over the hand-held Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 though. Despite having a slightly larger field of view(6.6 vs 6.5 angular degrees), I felt the field was significantly more immersive in the Leica compared with the Canon 8 x 20. It almost felt as if I were watching a scene on a movie screen in the latter compared with the feeling of being much more ‘in the image’ using the Leica.

Chromatic aberration was an absolute non-issue in the Canon IS 8 x 20, unlike the larger and older Canon IS 10 x 30. Indeed, it was fully the equal of the Leica Ultravid 8x 20, with only the extreme edges of the field showing up the merest traces of secondary spectrum whilst glassing high contrast daylight targets.

Close focus was found to be very good in the Canon IS 8x 20 too. I measured it at just over 2 metres, in accordance with the stated numbers issued by Canon. Still, the Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 BR was noticeably better at 1.8 metres.

Depth of focus proved excellent in the Canon IS 8 x 20. Indeed, it was even a shade better than my Leica 8 x 20 Ultravid BR. This was largely to be expected, as the Porro prism design of the Canon has long been known to create better depth perception in comparison to their roof prism counterparts.

All in all, I judged the Canon IS 8 x 20 to have excellent optics, as good or better in many respects to the best roof prism instruments models available today.

Engaging the IS Technology

The real magic of these binoculars takes place when you press the image stabilisation button. Like the larger 10 x 30 IS I tested some weeks back, the smaller Canon 8 x 20 IS works brilliantly. Aim at your target, focus as sharply as you can and press the IS button. You can immediately see finer detail that is quite invisible in the non-stabilised views. The stabilisation function works in two modes: sporadic and continuous. Most of the time, I used the button to stabilise the image for a few seconds before dis-engaging. But the IS function can also be used continuously for up to five minutes. I got on less well with the latter mode, as I felt a bit queasy moving the binocular from one target to the other, and watching the images ‘swim’ into stabilised mode.

In another test, I compared the stabilised views on the Canon 8 x 20 IS to a tripod- mounted Leica Utravid 8 x 20. Carefully going back and forth between the instruments, I discerned slightly more details in the tripod-stabilised Leica than the Canon 8 x 20 IS. This is in keeping with my results with the older generation 10 x 30 IS. The tripod-stabilised view offers a little more in the way of resolution at the cost of losing portability.

In yet another test, I aimed the Canon IS 8 x 20 on the Pleaides star cluster high in the winter sky, comparing the non-stabilised view with the images served up when the IS function was engaged. The results were quite dramatic; many fainter stars popped into view when the IS button was engaged. Very impressive!

Concluding Thoughts and Recommendations

The Canon 8 x 20 IS serves up very impressive views, even when the image stabilisation function is dis-engaged. These newer models have noticeably improved optics over their older counterparts, especially in terms of brightness and contrast, and in the control of stray light. Indeed, optically, they are very close to the quality served up by the world’s best pocket binoculars. Having said that, while I fully acknowledge that the smaller weight of these new Canon IS binoculars is a big step in the right direction in terms of ergonomic handling, they still fall quite a bit short in terms of how good they feel in my hands compared with my little Leica Ultravid. Indeed, I think the engineers at Canon could make some significant improvements in the shape of the chassis to allow a better grip in the hand. What’s more, their lack of waterproofing will put others off, especially if they intend using them for long periods in the field where the weather can change without warning.

So, all in all, a terrific product, but still some room for improvement.

Thanks for reading.

De Fideli.

Product Review: GPO Passion ED 10 x 32.

Posted on 15/12/2021 by Neil English

The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 package.

A Work Commenced December 18 2021

Preamble

Instrument: German Precision Optics(GPO) Passion ED 10 x 32

Country of Manufacture: China

Field of View: 105m@1000m(6.0 angular degrees)

Exit Pupil: 3.2mm

Eye Relief: 15mm

Chassis: Rubber armoured magnesium alloy, machined aluminium eyecups

Close Focus: 2.5m advertised, 1.92m measured

Dioptre Compensation: +/- 2.5

Nitrogen Purged: Yes

Waterproof: Yes(1m un-stated time)

Coatings: Fully broadband multi-coated, phase and dielectric coatings applied to Schmidt Pechan roof prisms

ED Glass: Yes

Light Transmission: 90%

Tripod Mountable: Yes

Weight: 500g advertised, 509g measured

Dimensions: L/W 11.8/11.8cm

Accessories: cleaning cloth, hard case, neoprene neck strap, hard case strap, objective covers, ocular covers

Warranty: 10 years

Price: £352.99(UK)

In a previous blog, I reviewed the magnificent GPO Passion HD 10 x 42, one of the flagship models from the relatively new firm, German Precision Optics. For the money, I felt it was an excellent bargain, especially when compared to significantly more expensive models from Zeiss, Leica and Swarovski. Gone are the days when you have to shell out several grand to get a world class binocular, and in my opinion, GPO are definitely leading the way in this regard.

But having enjoyed the instrument for a couple of weeks, reality began to bite. As I’ve remarked before, the 42mm format is not my favourite. It has nothing to do with optics or ergonomics. It’s about weight. You see, I’ve come to strongly favour smaller formats. I already own and frequently use a world-class pocket binocular, the Leica Ultravid BR 8 x 20, but my experiences with larger binoculars convinced me that an optimum size for me would come from the compact class of binoculars, with apertures in the 30-35mm size class. Such instruments are easier to hold, easier to view through, and have more light gathering power. But I was also on the look out for a 10x instrument, to afford greater reach for my glassing targets, especially birds. While I’ve enjoyed some really high quality 10 x 25 pocket glasses in the past, their smaller objectives let in less light – an important parameter when glassing in shady areas during daylight hours, and especially for discerning subtle colour tones.

Unfortunately, GPO did not offer a smaller model in their flagship HD range, but they did have a 10 x 32 model from their more economical Passion ED line. After doing some research on this model(see the Preamble link above), I decided to pull the trigger and ordered one up for testing; enter the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32.

The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 and its high quality carry case.

First Impressions

Costing less than half the price of the larger 10 x 42 HD model, the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 package arrived with all of the same great quality accessories that delighted me in the larger HD binocular: I received the same neck strap, a smaller clamshell case, snugly fitting rain guard and objective lens covers, GPO-branded microfibre lens cleaning cloth, instruction manual and warranty card. It arrived in the same high quality presentation box as the larger HD model, with its unique serial number etched into the underside of the binocular and on the outside of the box. Very neat!

The GPO Passion ED 10x 32 has the same excellent build quality as the larger HD models.

Picking up the binocular and holding it, I was chuffed to see how well it fitted my hands. The narrow, single bridge allowed me to wrap my fingers round the barrels better than any other 30-32mm model I’ve previously handled. And while the instrument has a lovely, solid feel about it, with its sturdy magnesium alloy chassis, I was very reassured by its considerably lower weight; just 500g as opposed to ~ 850g for the larger, HD instrument.

The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 fits perfectly in my hands!

The central hinge is nice and stiff, making it difficult to change the IPD on the fly. I like that. The binocular has a rather oversized central focus wheel, just like the heavier HD model, and I was relieved to see that it moved very easily and smoothly, with just one finger. The professionally machined aluminium eyecups are, in my opinion, even more impressive on the Passion ED model than the HD, rigidly locking into place with one intermediate click stop. The immaculately applied rubber armouring has two textures, just like the HD, a roughly textured side armouring and a silky smooth substrate covering the inside of the barrels.

All in all, very impressive!

Ergonomics

The GPO Passion ED shares many of the high quality ergonomic features built into the more expensive HD models. The ocular and objective antireflection coatings are immaculately applied and have a fetching magenta hue when observed in broad daylight. Unlike the HD models however, they do not have the hydrophobic coatings – an acceptable sacrifice, and then some.

Ocular lens end of the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32.

The objective lenses are recessed to an extent I’ve not seen before on any other compact model I’ve had the pleasure of using. I measured it at about 9mm! Why so deep? Well, it could be to protect those objectives from the vagaries of the weather; rain, wind, and stray light etc, or maybe partially compensating for the lack of hydrophobic coatings on the glass? Whatever the precise reason, I liked it!

The beautiful magenta coloured antireflection coatings on the Passion ED are immaculately applied, and note the exceptionally deeply recessed objective lenses!

The eyecups are beautifully designed; absolutely world class! They extend upwards with one intermediate position between fully retracted and fully extended, and lock into place rigidly with a reassuring ‘click.’ This is one binocular you can safely store inside its case with the eyecups fully extended for quicker deployment. They ain’t gonna budge!

Eye relief proved perfect for me, as I don’t use eye glasses, but I think the stated value of 15mm might be a bit optimistic, as I was not easily able to observe the full field of view keeping the eyecups down and wearing my varifocals.

The beautifully machined aluminium eyecups are world class, clicking into place with absolute rigidity.

Unlike the more expensive HD models which have a centre-locking dioptre adjustment, the Passion ED presents a more cost-effective solution by returning it to under the right ocular lens. While adjusting it, I noted its excellent rigidity, rendering it very resistant to accidentally moving while in the field. I felt it was a very acceptable compromise. Furthermore, the + and – settings are clearly marked, and so it’s very easy to memorise its optimal positioning should the instrument be used by others.

The oversized focus wheel is very easy to access and manoeuvre using one finger. It has a very grippy, texturized rubber overcoat, identical in fact to the more expensive HD models. Taking just over one complete turn to go from one extreme of its travel to the other, I would rate its speed as very fast; a good thing in my opinion, as it will be used primarily for birding, where big changes in focus position are often required following a mobile avian target. Motions are very smooth though, but I did notice a very small bit of play with it; similar in fact to focus wheel on the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32 I used and enjoyed a while back. Here the HD model came out better in my opinion, as I was unable to detect any play whatsoever with the 10 x 42.

I was most highly impressed with the way the binocular felt in my hands though. In truth, I don’t recall enjoying wrapping my medium sized hands around the barrels as much as on any other compact binocular I’ve tested. I reckon that this is attributed to the narrow bridge, which exposes those long, slender barrels. It’s simply a joy to hold, perfectly stable and always a thrill to bring to my eyes!

All in all, the build quality and handling of the Passion ED 10 x 32 are absolutely unrivalled in this moderate price class. GPO has clearly gone well beyond the call of duty in the design and execution of these new, highly-advanced compact binoculars!

Optics

The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 came perfectly collimated. I was able to ascertain this by carefully focusing the binocular on the bright star Capella and then moving the right eye dioptre to the end of its natural travel. The perfectly focused star from the left barrel was found right in the centre of the defocused star diffraction pattern.

The lady reviewing the 10 x 32 in the Preamble to this review stated that the binocular had no issues with internal reflections and stray light and I was able to affirm this in the 10 x 32 I received. The image of an intensely bright beam of light from my IPhone torch was clean and devoid of diffraction spikes.

The exit pupils are nice and round and have little in the way of light leaks immediately around the pupil; a very good result but not quite in the same league as those found on the more expensive Passion HD 10 x 42.

Left eye pupil.

Right eye pupil.

In broad daylight, the images served up by the GPO Passion ED are very impressive! It is bright and very sharp across the entire field, with very little in the way of distortion even at the field stops. Like the Passion HD model, it enjoys a very decisive snap to focus on whatever target I turn it on. The small exit pupil ensures that the best part of your eye does all the imaging. Colours are vivid and natural but to my eye it has a slightly warm tone, with greens and browns coming through very strongly. Contrast is very good but not quite in the same class as the GPO Passion HD 10x 42 I tested it against. Glare suppression was also impressive. Comparing it to my control binocular – a Barr & Stroud Series 5 8x 42 ED – which exhibits excellent control of all types of glare, including veiling glare, the little Passion ED proved to be slightly superior to it. However, it was not quite as good in this capacity as the GPO 10 x 42 HD model, which exhibits the best control of glare that I have personally witnessed in any binocular.

Close focus is considerably better than I had expected. The accompanying user manual claimed 2.5m for this model, but I measured it at only 1.92m!

Colour correction in the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is very impressive! Pointing the binocular into the branches of a leafless tree against a bright overcast sky, the centre of the image is completely devoid of it, and even off axis, I could only coax the merest trace and only near the field stops. Returning to testing the binocular under the stars, I was able to verify just how well corrected the field of view is. Stars remain nice pinpoints nearly all the way to the edges. I attribute this excellent result to GPO’s optical engineers’ choice of field size. 6 degrees is not large by modern standards so it’s easier to achieve optical excellence using standard eyepiece designs. More on this a little later.

Venturing out on a freezing, misty December night to observe the full Moon, the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 threw up a beautiful image. It was clean and sharp and contrasty. Secondary spectrum was non existent over the vast majority of the field, with only the extreme edges showing some weak lateral colour. Field illumination was also excellent, as with the 10 x 42 HD, with very little in the way of brightness drop off as the bright silvery orb was moved from the centre to the edge of the field. I also judged field distortion to be excellent in these tests too. The Moon remains razor sharp across most of the field, and only shows slight defocus at the field stops. Indeed, it was very comparable to the results I got with my optically excellent Leica Ultravid 8 x 20 in this regard.

Complementary instruments.

These are excellent results, and quite in keeping with the comments made by the lady from Optics Trade, as revealed in the Preamble video linked to at the beginning of the review. Indeed, these results place the GPO Passion ED in the top tier optically. Its colour correction was notably better than the Leica Trinovid HD 8 x 32, and I felt its sharpness and contrast were perhaps a shade better too. I’m confident that this 10 x 32 ED could hold its own against top-rated compact binoculars up to twice its retail value or more.

Notes from the Field & Concluding Comments

The view through the GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is very stable and immersive. On paper a field of view of 105m@1000m might seem restrictive but in practice you never get that impression. There are no blackouts, rolling ball effects or any other issues common to compact models sporting wider fields of view with field flatteners. This makes panning observations particularly pleasurable with this instrument. To be honest, I suspected that this would have been the case after I had put the Passion HD 10 x 42 through its paces. Indeed I would hazard a guess that both binocular lines – the HD and ED – have substantially similar optical designs. As an experienced glasser, I have no abiding interest in very large fields of view. Indeed, I tend to think of those wide angle binoculars as rather distracting and more suited to beginners than more seasoned observers. I’m interested in vignettes not vistas.

Goldilocks Binocular.

So there you have it! The GPO Passion ED 10 x 32 is, for me, a Goldilocks binocular, serving my purposes perfectly and fitting my hands like a tailor-made glove. It pays to mention that GPO also market a 8 x 32 with a wider field of view, and two 42mm models with powers of 8x and 10x; so something for everyone! Check them out as soon as you can. You’ll not be disappointed!

Dr Neil English has some exciting news to reveal early in the new year. For now, he’d like to wish all his readers a Very Happy Christmas!

De Fideli.

Product Review: Two Economically Priced Monoculars from Barr & Stroud.

Posted on 03/12/2021 by Neil English

The Barr & Stroud Sprite Plus 15 x 50 (top) and Sprite Midi 8 x 42(bottom).

A Work Commenced December 10 2021

Product Names: Barr & Stroud Sprite Midi 8 x 42/ Plus 15 x 50

Country of Manufacture: China

Eye Relief: 5.25mm(8×42)/ 3.33mm(15×50)

Field of View: 129m@1000m(8 x 42)/ 66m@1000m(15 x 50)

Eye Relief: 17.5mm(8 x 42)/ 11mm(15 x 50)

Coatings: Fully Multicoated, silvered and phase corrected Bak4 prisms(8 x 42 Midi non phase coated)

Chassis Material: Rubber Armoured Polycarbonate

Waterproof: Yes (1.5m for 3 minutes)

Nitrogen Purged: Yes

Close Focus: 3m(8 x 42)/2.5m(15×50) advertised, 2.9 and 2.2 m measured, respectively

Tripod Mountable: Yes

Weight: 339g(8 x 42)/ 448g(15 x 50)

Dimensions: 139x80x55mm(8 x 42)/165X80X62mm(15 x 50)

Accessories: Soft padded carry case, lens cleaning cloth, carry strap, warranty card & instruction sheet, tethered rubber objective and ocular caps

Warranty: 10 Years

Retail Price(UK): £59.95(8x 42)/ £74.95(15 x 50)

In several previous reviews, I’ve showcased a few binoculars made by Barr & Stroud. As I explained before, I cut my first binocular teeth with a modern roof prism binocular by Barr & Stroud just over three years ago, and have always been impressed by their excellent bang for buck. Unlike so many other instruments in the same price range, which showed mis-collimated barrels, too much field curvature, chromatic aberration and sub-standard ergonomics, Barr & Stroud products punched well above their weight in terms both of the quality of the optics they presented and the rugged no-nonsense chassis in which those optics were housed. In this review, I’ll be discussing the optical and ergonomic features of two nifty monoculars from the same company; the Sprite Midi 8 x 42, and the higher power Sprite Plus 15 x 50. But before we get to those details, let’s take some time to go over the reasons why a monocular might suit an individual more than a binocular.

A monocular is, quite simply, half a binocular. Thus, it uses one eye rather than two. Some people have natural deficiencies in one eye, such as severe astigmatism for example, that results in their inability to properly adjust the dioptre setting on a regular binocular leading to a blurred image. Others have one eye damaged in some way and so can’t avail of the natural advantages of using both eyes. Some folk like to use monoculars because they are smaller and lighter than the equivalent binocular and this may prove to be very important if space and weight constraints are very tight. Monoculars are now available in many sizes and magnifications. Low power monoculars have magnification ranges similar to that found in modern compact and full-sized binoculars, but higher powered units function more like mini-spotting scopes, enabling the user to lock in on small targets beyond the range of binoculars or seeing details quite invisible to conventional, hand-held binoculars. Yet another advantage of a monocular is cost; it’s just cheaper to use a monocular than a binocular of the same aperture.

What does one lose in going from a binocular to a monocular? Well, a few things actually. Depth perception for one thing, as our eyes were designed in such a way that they both create the sensation of focus depth, allowing us to gain a sense of the 3-dimensional shape of objects and how far away they are. Many observers enjoy up to a 40 per cent gain in contrast using binoculars compared with the same sized monocular. The reasons for this are not entirely understood but suffice it to say that using two eyes increases the signal to noise ratio in the electrical impulses that are created in viewing an object. Many observers also report that monoculars are harder to hold steady than binoculars of the same aperture. Despite these drawbacks, most of the main binocular manufacturers also produce monoculars, and Barr & Stroud is no exception.

First Impressions & Ergonomics

Both the Barr & Stroud monoculars have a polycarbonate chassis overlaid by a grippy, green rubber armouring. The polycarbonate body cuts down on weight and is perfectly adequate for most observing schedules. Both instruments fit very easily in the palm of your hand. They are both very lightweight; the 8 x 42mm weighing at 350g and the 15 x 50mm just 100g more. In this capacity, both the Sprite Midi 8x 42 and Plus are no heavier than the average compact binocular. Both instruments come with a rubberised rain guard and a tethered objective cover, which means you’ll never lose it in the field.

Both Barr & Stroud Monoculars have a permanently tethered objective cover.

In a previous blog, I commented on my great fondness for the quality of the focusers on a number of Barr & Stroud binoculars. And these binoculars are no exception. Both instruments have silky smooth focus wheels, which are large and easy to negotiate with just one finger. They do however have slightly different textures; I found that I preferred the less expensive Midi Sprite focus wheel over the larger 15 x 50 Sprite Plus. It was just slightly easier to grip and engage with throughout its travel.

The focus wheel on both Barr & Stroud monoculars are of high quality but I liked the extra grip afforded by the less expensive Midi model.

Both monoculars are equipped with pull-up eyecups that lock rigidly in place. The smaller 8 x 42 Sprite Midi has very generous eye relief. I was easily able to observe the full field with my eye glasses on. The larger Sprite Plus however, has considerably less eye relief, but if push came to shove, I was just able to engage with the full field but it was certainly challenging!

Both monoculars have well made twist up eyecups that lock rigidly in place.

Both Barr & Stroud monoculars come with a screw thread which enables you to mate it to a tripod or monopod for extra visual stability.

Both monoculars can be easily mated to a tripod or monopod.

Both monoculars come with a padded case and a carry strap that you can easily affix to the instrument.

Each monocular is supplied with a padded carry case and strap to carry it from place to place.

Optics

Both Barr & Stroud monoculars feature fully multicoated optics and BaK4 Schmidt Pechan roof prisms. The less expansive Sprite Midi 8x 42 is not phase coated however, unlike the higher power 15 x 50 Sprite Plus. The Sprite Midi 8 x 42 appears to have the same specifications as the 8 x 42 Sahara binocular with a field of view of 129m@1000m or 7.35 angular degrees but has a noticeably longer close focus at 2.59m(as opposed to just 1.98m for the Sahara binocular). Intriguingly, the Sprite Plus 15 x 50 monocular has a significantly better close focus of just 2.2 metres, which is also considerably less than the 2.5m advertised.

The higher power Spite Plus 15 x 50 has phase coated roof prisms unlike the smaller Sprite Midi.

Looking at the exit pupil of both monoculars showed a significantly better result for the larger Sprite Plus 15 x 50. Although both presented with nice round pupils, the 8 x 42 Midi had more stray light close to the pupil, as the images below show.

The exit pupil presented in the Sprite Midi 8 x 42.

The exit pupil presented by the Sprite Plus 15 x 50.

These results were also somewhat reproduced in my tests for internal reflections, by directing a bright beam of my IPhone 7 torch into the monoculars from across a room and inspecting the images visually. The Midi 8 x 42 did show significantly more internal reflections and diffused light around the beam than the larger 15 x 50 Plus unit. That said, these stray light artefacts were not terribly injurious to the image and both gave passable results when directed at a sodium street light after dark, and also on a bright Moon.

The daylight images served up by the 8 x 42 Midi monocular are bright and sharp. Contrast is good and chromatic aberration is very well controlled, with only the outer part of the field showing a trace. The 8 x 42 has a large sweet spot covering perhaps 60 per cent of the field but beyond that astigmatism and pincushion distortion increase gradually towards the field stop. I was also able to confirm these findings under the stars.

I judged the larger Sprite Plus 15 x 50 to be better optically than the smaller 8 x 42. Despite its higher power, the images it served up had higher contrast than the latter, a consequence I suppose of its phase corrected roof prisms. The field of view was flatter and better corrected in the 15 x 50 too. Star testing showed that most of its 3.78 degree true field was very well corrected, with only the outer 15 per cent showing significant distortion. Chromatic aberration was more conspicuous but never to an unacceptable degree. High contrast objects against a bright over cast sky background does show some but that’s just par for the course and most folk can easily ignore it and just get on with observing.

I found the 15 x 50 unit more versatile than the 8 x 42. With its substantial magnification, I enjoyed employing it as a mini spotting scope, either mounted on a monopod or simply by finding a suitable branch or fence post to rest it on. If you’re observing from a car, a small beanbag also works wonders stabilising the view. The 15x is just right for bridging the gap between a standard binocular view and a larger spotting scope. For example, I was able to make out nice, high-resolution details on a Grey Heron that were quite invisible in 8x and 10x binoculars. The 15 x 50 is a nifty instrument for studying the phases of the Moon; all the way from slender crescent to full on full Moon. Crater fields and maria show up sharply and in very high contrast; a true refractor image. The Plus proved to be a rather good, low-power, rich field telescope too, delivering up very impressive views of larger deep sky objects such as the Pleiades, the Beehive Cluster, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Double Cluster. Views of the Sword Handle of Orion also proved very compelling through the Spite Plus.

In addition to its higher magnification, the better close focus on the Sprite Plus 15 x 50 made it a rather good, long distance microscope, affording crystal clear views of leaf litter, bark, rock formations, fungi and tree branches. Indeed, if coupled to a digi-scoping adapter, it works well as an ultraportable telephoto lens.

In summary, both the Sprite Midi 8 x 42 and Plus 15 x 50 represent excellent value for money. They are well made, small, lightweight, easy to use, weather resistant and serve up very decent optics for their modest price tags. If your outdoor activities are in need of a magnification boost, give one of these monoculars a try. You won’t be left second guessing!

Neil English is the author of seven books on amateur and professional astronomy, including Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.

De Fideli.

Product Review: Svbony SV410 9-27 x 56mm ED Mini Spotting Scope.

Posted on 02/11/2021 by Neil English

The Svbony SV 410 9-27 x 56mm ED Spotting Scope Package.

A Work Commenced October 29 2021

Product: Svbony SV410 9-27x 56mm HD

Place of Origin: Hong Kong

Magnification Range: 9-27 x zoom

Aperture: 56mm

Objective Focal Length: 189mm

ED Glass: Yes

Field of View: 36-78m@1000m,(2.1- 4.5 angular degrees)

Eye Relief: 18mm

Close Focus: 2m(advertised), 2.16m measured

Nitrogen Purged: Yes

Waterproof: Yes IPX5

Dimensions: 19.4 x 6.6 x 11.8cm

Weight: 580g(advertised), 561g measured

Accessories: Rubber objective and ocular caps, protective scope jacket, lens cleaning cloth, carrying strap, Instruction manual.

Warranty: 1 Year(limited)

Retail Price: £179.99(UK)

Svbony is a relatively new Hong Kong-based optics firm that began supplying amateur astronomers and nature enthusiasts with a wide range of cost-effective but good quality instruments and accessories in 2014. A google search of Svbony products will reveal a large and international fan base of customers who have been pleased with their eyepieces, filters, night vision devices and more recently, the company’s extensive range of astronomical and terrestrial spotting scopes.

My introduction to Svbony came as a result of testing out a trio of high-performance binoculars from their SV 202 range. You can see those reviews here, here and here. What astonished me most about these binoculars was their excellent optical and mechanical performance at prices that were simply unbeatable in today’s market. These experiences collectively whetted my appetite to explore some more of their products, and in this review I will be sharing my thoughts on their newly launched mini-spotting scope that combines weatherproof ruggedness with good optical performance, in an ultra-portable package; enter the SV 410 9-27 x 56mm ED spotter, which first appeared on the market back in April of this year.

The scope was purchased from Amazon UK for a price of £179.99, and arrived a couple of days after ordering. Readers may also purchase the instrument directly from Svbony via this link, which will allow you to purchase the scope more cheaply if you can tolerate a longer shipping time(usually about 8 days)The instrument came well packed inside a long, white box with the blue and yellow Svbony logo, and with all of its accessories neatly packed inside. The little spotting scope was carefully placed inside a snugly fitting black foam bed, carefully cut to match the angled shape of the instrument. The accessories included a comprehensive multi-language instruction manual, a lens cleaning cloth, a nicely machined protective jacket and carry strap. The scope itself came with good quality and tightly-fitting rubber ocular and objective covers.

The Svbony mini spotting scope is very small and easy to carry, almost fitting inside a large pocket.

Ergonomics

Right from the get go, I was very impressed with the build quality of the SV 410 mini spotter. It feels very solid in the hand but only weighs about the same as a typical 8 x 32 binocular. The metal chassis (possibly a magnesium alloy or aluminium) is overlaid by a mild green rubber armouring. The helical focuser, located between the objective and the eyepiece moves nicely with a good deal of friction. There is no facility for fine focusing like on larger spotting scopes, which offer a larger range of magnifications, but in use I found that it was more than adequate to get precise focus since the highest power (27x) is not large enough to necessitate a fine focus knob.

The zoom eyepiece is clearly marked with magnifications from 9x to 27x which you can choose simply by rotating the eyepiece to dial in your preferred power boost.

The silky smooth zoom function on the eyepiece gives the user a range of magnifications from 9x through 27x.

The nicely machined aluminium eyecup is overlaid with soft, black rubber and twists upward to provide the necessary eye relief for non-eye glass wearers. It clicks into place- and you can hear it!– without any play, and holds its position very well. Another good design feature of the eyecup is its continuous motion from fully retracted to extended -that means you can dial in your preferred eye relief. I found, for example, that the eyecups pushed slightly down renders excellent results without glasses.

The nicely machined twist up eyecup on the SV 410 mini spotter.

The instrument is quoted as having an eye relief of 18mm, but I found it was a little shorter than this. I did however test the scope with the eyecup fully retracted with my eye glasses and I was able to see the entire field with no problems but it was fairly tight!

The objective and ocular lens coatings are different from those applied to their SV 202 binoculars, having a mild, greenish tint in broad daylight;

The anti-reflection lens coatings on the Svbony mini spotter are a subdued green.

The green anti-reflection coatings on the eyepiece lens.

Unlike larger spotting scopes, there is no lens hood on the Svbony SV 410 spotter, although the objective is quite deeply recessed. Having a hood would afford greater protection against stray light during use in bright daylight but if push come to shove, one can easily be made from a cardboard or plastic sheath. I guess Svbony decided against having a lens shade to keep the weight down to an absolute minimum.

The underside of the mini spotter has a brass screw socket to enable the user to quickly mate it to a monopod or tripod in field use.

The underside of the mini spotter has a socket to attach it to either a monopod or tripod.

Overall, I was very impressed with the build quality on this nifty little spotting scope from Svbony; so small it fits snugly in the palm of your hand.

I keep the tripod mounting bracket on the underside of the scope for quick release from a tripod or monopod.

Optical Evaluation

My first test looked for stray light and internal reflections when pointed at an extremely bright light source. So on went my IPhone torch set to its brightest setting. After focusing the beam from across a living room, I was able to establish that the unit displayed excellent suppression of internal reflections, but also very little in the way of diffused light and no diffraction spikes. Just like their SV 202 binoculars, this spotting scope was up there with them in terms of controlling bright light sources. I confirmed this after dark by looking at a bright sodium street lamp. All was well, as I expected, with a nice clean image of the lamp with no annoying internal reflections or diffraction spikes. Once again, good job Svbony!

Looking at the exit pupil as the scope was racked through its zoom magnification range showed a nice round light shaft throughout. The images below show the exit pupil at the 9x setting and the 27x setting for reference:

Exit pupil at 9x setting.

Exit pupil at 27x setting

Taking into the consideration the extremely fast focal ratio of this Porro prism spotting scope ( f/3.4), requiring four objective lens(one of which is an ED element) elements in three groups, I knew going in that the total elimination of chromatic aberration would be a tall order. But I was very pleasantly surprised when, after mounting the scope to a lightweight tripod, I racked it through its full range of magnifications, 9x through 27x, focused on a telephone pole set against a uniformly bright overcast sky. I noted that I could obtain a very sharp focus right up to 27x with only a modest amount of chromatic aberration seen around the edges of wires and the pole itself. Furthermore, any secondary spectrum seen was very sensitive to eye placement. I quickly learned to move my eye around to minimise it while observing my targets. In addition, moving off axis shows some lateral chromatic aberration in this scope.

The image is bright and sharp, with excellent contrast. Autumn colours really showed up beautifully using this small spotting scope from the Far East. The eyepiece is not parfocal however, thus requiring a significant amount of refocusing moving from low to high power The zoom is continuously variable however, from 9x through 27x

The image remained very sharp right out to the field stop, with only very minor field curvature and pincushion distortion; much less severe than the vast majority of binoculars I’ve tested over the last three years! I took the liberty of capturing some images through the Svbony mini spotting scope using my IPhone and a digi-scoping adapter. The reader will bear in mind that these images were captured during the most adverse conditions possible with leaden rainclouds, windy gusts and outbreaks of rain. All the images are entirely unprocessed and were taken directly from my IPhone.

First up, an image of some fence posts at just under 44 yards distant. The reader will note the magnification was set to 27x and shows extremely mild field curvature at the edges of the field.

A wooden fence located at a distance of 43.8 yards, captured during very inclement lighting conditions. Next up, an image of a wooden outhouse roof about 20 yards away, showing the brilliant autumn colours coming though in the spotting scope set at 27x:

A rooftop showing greens, reds and browns of autumn.

The image blow shows autumn leaves at 24 yards distance, power of 27x:

Autumn leaves at 27x, distance 24 yards.

In my most severe test conducted, I took a shot of a telephone pole at a distance of 35 yards at 27x, showing some secondary spectrum. The reader will note that the amount seen by the naked eye is much less than the IPhone 7 captures:

A telephone pole and wiring set against a grey, overcast sky. 35 yards distant, 27x.

Finally, I took a picture of a BlueTit at the birdfeeder in my back garden: 15 yards distance, 27x:

Further Notes from the Field

I measured the close focus on the Svbony SV 410 mini spotting scope to be 2.16m or 7 feet, just a little longer than the advertised 2m. That’s an excellent result, closer, in fact, than a raft of other spotting scopes I’ve looked at. The nearest I got was 2.5m for the Opticron MM4 50 ED, and even the closest product to the Svbony – the Celestron Hummingbird 9-27 x 56 ED – has a close focus of nearly 10 feet! That’s great news for those who would like to use their spotting scopes as long range microscope. It’s quite amazing to be able to look at flowers, fungi, rocks, insects, and a host of other things at very close range at powers up to 27x. That, in my opinion, greatly increases its versatility.

Because it’s so small, the little Svbony spotter can be carried in a wide jacket pocket or a rucksack. Stable handholding is eminently possible at a power of 9x, but at higher powers it does benefit from some sort of makeshift support such as a beanbag. I was able to stabilise the image completely by resting the spotter on the branch of a tree while viewing a pair of Mute Swans at one of my local patches, when I could exploit the entire magnification range of the instrument.

For more hassle free results, it pays to mount the spotter on a monopod, and because these are very lightweight and fold up to very convenient sizes, they can be carried about in a rucksack, with no hassle to the rambler.

This would be a good place to compare and contrast some of the specifications of this Svbony mini ED spotting scope to an outwardly similar instrument – the Celestron Hummingbird 9-27 x 56mm ED. As well as having a significantly closer focus than the Hummingbird, it also sports a wider field of view. The Svbony has a field of view range from 2.1 to 4.5 angular degrees, as compared with the Hummingbird at 1.9 to 4.2 degrees. This makes object acquisition that little bit easier with the Svbony The eye relief is also better on the Svbony mini spotter (18mm as opposed to 15mm). Furthermore, the Svbony is about 30g lighter than the Celestron scope. But perhaps the best news of all is that the Celestron Hummingbird ED mini spotter retails for about £299.99. That’s a 66 per cent mark up in price compared with the Svbony! Is the Hummingbird really any better? I have my doubts!

Notes Gleaned from Looking at the Night Sky

Reviewers who only carry out terrestrial observations during daylight hours are prone to miss some important details about their subject instruments. As a case in point, I use my right eye for astronomical viewing through all my telescopes, and this little Svbony was no exception. At 9x I noticed the mild astigmatism in my own eye was showing up in images of bright stars in the spotting scope’s field of view. But when I cranked up the power to 27x, the astigmatism was noticeably less. Viewing with my glasses on effectively eliminated this astigmatism. Had I confined my viewing to daytime targets, I would be none the wiser to this aberration originating from my own eyes.

Star images remained nice and tight nearly all the way to the field stop at all magnifications, just as the photos above reveal. The instrument clearly has a very flat and well corrected field.

The Svbony SV 410 mini ED spotting scope proved to be an excellent instrument for observing the Moon, which I enjoyed doing over a couple of weeks in October. There are no annoying reflections and diffraction spikes in the images it served up. A great amount of detail was gleaned at 27x; craters, maria, valleys and mountains all showed up with beautiful sharpness and contrast. I detected some slight fringing at the lunar limb, but this was also sensitive to eye placement. In comparison to my 20 x 60 Pentax PCF binocular, the Svbony showed slightly less colour fringing on the Moon but was its equal for sharpness and contrast – a very good result indeed, as I rate the latter very highly as a Moon-gazing binocular.

Bright stars like Vega reveal a trace of secondary spectrum at the highest powers as does the bright planet Jupiter, but I was just able to make out two bands straddling the planet’s equator and the four large Galilean satellites were very clearly discerned as tiny stellar-like point sources. I was also delighted to see Saturn’s majestic rings with the little Svbony spotter, and even its largest satellite, Titan.

In the late evening of October 30, I enjoyed a long clear spell with the waning Moon out of the sky. Mounting the spotter on my tripod, I examined a suite of double stars to test the resolving capabilities of this pint-sized scope. My first target was Mizar & Alcor low in the northern sky, where I was able to prize apart the tight companion to Mizar at 27x. Albireo( Beta Cygni) was beautiful and easy at powers above 12x, but most compelling at 27x. The view of the celebrated binocular multiple star system Omicron^1 Cygni was gorgeously presented at 27x, the wonderful colour contrast of its components coming through clearly. The components of Beta Lyrae were also cleanly resolved, and an especially lovely sight at 27x. Perhaps my most challenging split came when I turned the instrument on the orange star Gamma Delphini, now sinking into the west south-westerly sky. Taking that little bit extra care focusing this system at 27x revealed the prize I had been looking for; its fifth magnitude companion being just resolved with a steady gaze. This will make an excellent instrument for observing traditional binocular doubles, allowing you to study them at significantly higher powers than regular binoculars!

The main body of the Pleaides was nicely framed in the 2.1 degree true field of the Svbony SV 410 ED spotting scope at 27x. Many dozens of stars filled the field from edge to edge, including many double and multiple star systems easily discerned at the highest powers available to me. What appeared very odd to me at first, was the orientation of the stars making up this most celebrated herald of autumn. Of course, it presents the view as the eye sees it(only magnified), but being very accustomed to viewing stars through Newtonians and (in a former life), small refractors yielding upright but mirror-reversed images, it took a bit of getting used to in this quirky little spotting scope. Pointing the scope much higher up in the night sky showed me a very nice view of the great Galaxy in Andromeda(M31), together with its fainter companions M32 near the core, and M110 about a degree off to the northwest of the core of M31. The Double Cluster in Perseus, now near the zenith, stood out beautifully at 23x against a jet black hinterland. The Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula was an awesome sight at powers between 15x and 23x. And while sinking quite low into the north-western sky, I enjoyed some very fine views of M13 and M92 in Hercules.

As local midnight approached, I began observing the trio of Messier open clusters in Auriga. At 27x, one can begin to resolve these celebrated clusters into dozens of individual stars. Later on again, in the wee small hours of Sunday morning, October 31, I went in search of M35, that wonderful, sprawling open cluster in the northern foot of Gemini, and was rewarded by a very compelling sight at powers above 20x, when several dozen of its brightest luminaries began to be resolved in the spotting scope. That weekend night vigil convinced me that a great deal of astronomy can be done with such a tiny scope as this. It’s very easy to find objects at 9x before zooming in for a closer look.

Conclusions & Recommendations

My experiences with the Svbony SV 410 9-27 x 56 ED spotting scope have been very pleasing indeed. Its low cost, solid optical performance, ease of handling, outdoor ruggedness and very light weight will appeal to a great many individuals wanting to make a move into the high magnification world of sport optics. And while not a full-sized instrument with its larger aperture and magnification range, this pint-sized scope will fill a niche for many, serving multiple purposes as a rich field travel and spotting telescope, as well as a high-powered long range microscope that you can take with you anywhere.

Highly recommended!

Neil English is the author of seven books in amateur and professional astronomy, including one on refracting telescopes.

De Fideli.

Investigating the Potential of a Modified Newtonian Reflector as a Spotting Scope.

Posted on 03/10/2021 by Neil English

Plotina: the author’s modified 130mm f/5 Newtonian reflector, with a Vixen Erecting Adaptor and two simple Plossl eyepieces used in the investigation.

A Work Commenced October 3 2021

In this blog, I’ll be demonstrating the potential of a small Newtonian reflector operating in spotting ‘scope mode. This follows on from a previous blog I conducted to find a suitable optical device that would give fully erected and correct left-right orientation, just like a conventional spotting scope.

First, a few words of introduction about the telescope. It’s a 130mm f/5 SkyWatcher Newtonian reflector, so has a focal length of 650mm. Because of its open-tube design, the instrument is surprisingly light; just 3.8 kilos(8.4 pounds) and 4.1 kg (9 pounds) with the mounting bracket attached. It acclimates fully in 30-40 minutes, even when taken from a warm indoors environment to the cold of a Winter’s day. But such thorough cooling is only necessary to coax the highest powers out of the instrument.

The instrument has mirrors treated with state-of-the-art Hilux coatings(applied by Orion Optics, UK), increasing its overall reflectivity to 97 per cent. The primary mirror is the original one supplied by SkyWatcher, while the secondary flat mirror was upgraded with an Orion Optics UK secondary, having a flatter surface and smaller semi-major diameter of 35mm. This provides a small 26.9 per cent central obstruction. This size of central obstruction is significantly smaller than a Maksutov or Schmidt Cassegrain (SCT) of the same aperture. Unlike the popular Maksutov, the 130mm Newtonian(aka Plotina), can deliver a significantly lower magnification. For example, using a 32mm Skywatcher Plossl, it delivers a power of just 20x and using another Plossl of focal length 10mm, the telescope provides an amplification of 65x. I used these two eyepieces to demonstrate the spotting scope potential of the Newtonian, as many conventional spotters provide magnifications in this range(20-65x), corresponding to exit pupils of 4.7 and 2mm, respectively.

The contrast transfer is provided by subtracting the aperture of the secondary from the primary(130-35 = 95mm), thus one can expect a degree of contrast equivalent to a 95mm apochromatic refractor. Its light gathering power and resolution(0.89″) are significantly higher than a 95mm refractor, however. This has been borne out in several years of observations of lunar, planetary, double star and deep sky observing. The reader will find several other blogs I have published on this instrument in the past by clicking on the ‘Telescopes’ link on the home page.

The Erecting Adapter: Purchased for £80, the Vixen erecting adapter is a rather long appendage but delivers an upright image with the correct left-right orientation, just like a conventional spotting ‘scope. The lenses in the adapter are fully multi-coated and truncates the field a little when employing longer focal length eyepieces. You simply insert the desired eyepiece into the adapter, focus the ‘scope, and you’re off to the races!

Plotina, with the erecting adapter attached.

The instrument was used in broad daylight outside on a cool, breezy autumnal day, between heavy rain showers. It was mounted on a simple non motorised alt-azimuth(Vixen Porta II). The instrument is equipped with Bob’s Knobs screws for quick and easy collimation using a Hotech laser collimator. Alignment of the optics takes just a few seconds to get precise alignment of the secondary and primary mirrors. All of the images were taken simply by pointing my Iphone 7 into the eyepiece and taking single images. The pictures presented here are the highest resolution I can load onto this website( ~200-750KB), so are not the highest quality that I can potentially show. All the images are completely unmodified, apart from cropping. All distances quoted were measured with a laser range finder, and all the images were taken on the same breezy afternoon of October 3 2021.

Results:

Image 1: Shows a TV satellite dish at a power of 20x located at distance of 27 yards:

Image 2 shows some autumn leaves at 20x and located at a distance of 18.9 yards

Image 3 shows the branches of a tree at 20x located 43.1 yards from the scope:

Image 4 shows a hill top located at about 2 km distance at 65x

Discussion:

I am very encouraged by the results I obtained this afternoon. Irrespective of the scepticism of arm chair theorists, the images speak for themselves! The instrument provides very nice, high contrast and colour pure renditions of a variety of targets. Chromatic aberration is particularly well controlled, as expected, given that the Newtonian is a truly apochromatic optical system, though some secondary spectrum is introduced by the eyepieces chosen. In addition, higher quality eyepieces will give better off-axis performance, and because those oculars are inter-changeable, a greater range of magnifications can be explored. Visually, the images are considerably better when examined with the naked eye. The reader will note that these magnifications are somewhat pedestrian for such a large telescope. Visually, much higher magnifications can be utilised profitably. And although the formidable resolving power of the instrument is clearly in evidence, the images could be improved further by employing a higher quality phone camera. What’s more, the images could also be processed lightly to bring out even more details.

The set up, though admittedly bulky by conventional spotting scope standards, could quite easily be erected in the field or, better still, in a hide, where it could be used to gather video footage or still images with the right equipment. Observing from indoors, through a clean window is also a distinct possibility, especially at lower powers. The instrument is not weatherproof however, owing to its open-tube design, so may be prone to dewing up but a small, battery-operated fan would extend its longevity in field use.

I believe this provides a very cost effective way(the entire apparatus set me back just a few hundred pounds) of obtaining high quality images compared with a high-end apochromatic spotter.

Food for thought!

Thanks for reading!

Dr Neil English spent most of his adult life testing and observing through telescopes of all varieties and genres. He now enjoys a new lease of life exploring the terrestrial realm during daylight hours.

De Fideli.

Neil English.net

Binocular, Telescope & Astronomical Blogs

Author Archives: Neil English

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Product Review: Svbony SV410 9-27 x 56mm ED Mini Spotting Scope.

Investigating the Potential of a Modified Newtonian Reflector as a Spotting Scope.