Newsletter: The mighty telescope KOWA TSN 99 prominar

From the start of the G3 adventure, it was clear that my old Leica Televid spotting scope was too short for guiding professionally… I cannot afford that one client has to just accept a poor sight of a distant specimen. So I had to look for a new high end telescope that could bring the observers’ sight in any possible condition.

There is plenty of information on the Internet about choosing telescopes for bird and wildlife watching. Magnification, Objective Lens Size, Optical Quality, Waterproof and Fogproof, Angled or Straight, Durability, Weight and Portability, Eyepiece Compatibility, Eyepiece Compatibility and Price… 

For me, it was easy… since I wanted the best (a common theme in my guiding service), so I could pick any of the Swarovski, Zeiss or Kowa brands. My quest was timely with the launch of the most recent Kowa high end scope. I usually work with the excellent retailer Optica Roma (Madrid). 

With an objective lens of 99 mm of diameter (huge) and manufactured in one piece of fluorite crystal (without chromatic aberration), the result is absolutely stunning and luminous.

You add a zoom eyepiece (30x-70x magnification) which does hardly lose any optical quality at higher magnification. It is possible to see Griffon vultures sitting at the top of a tree at more than 3 km distance.

By the way, I have tested the wide angle zoom eyepiece… with no real difference in the field of view. I found it useless.

A perfect scope for digiscoping… useful for voucher images, pictures to share in social media and even some stunning images.

Little things… The neoprene case is good to protect such an expensive object but the attaching button breaks the neoprene easily when releasing the eyepiece protector. Press the case at the same time and it will be fine.

All in all, I could not spend my money better and I even managed to buy a second scope, so that we have no shortage of excellent views. So, everybody is happy.