Barr & Stroud Sprite 10x50 Monocular

[Stargazer_00]

Just bought one of these as an impulse buy for less than £40 delivered and I have to say it's not a bad little thing. It's basically a baby spotting scope with a fixed magnification.

The quality is actually surprising for the price. Feels very well made with a smooth focusing motion, good optics from what I can see. They aren't showing any CA on TV aerials against a bright sky background like I've seen in other cheap optics. The focus looks good from centre to about 80% out and the drop off after that isn't hideous but it does go slightly out of focus in the final 20% to edge.

The eye end has a nice twist up eye guard to seat your eye at the perfect position to get the exit pupil comfortably without hovering. I found I needed it at maximum to comfortably use the scope.

They also come with a rather quaint little tabletop alt az mount which is rather flimsy. My guess is this would only be useful where the surface it's resting on is at chin height or slightly lower. I guess designed for use in a hide for birding and no doubt it performs well enough at that function. Can focus in as close as 2m.

I bought them with the intention of keeping them in my car in case I'm out and about and see clear skies, always wanted to have something to hand and binoculars with this aperture would simply take up too much space.

All in all a good little purchase. Quite pleased.

Only odd thing is they don't seem to come with any protective cap for the eye end. I did mail the supplier and ask if this was an omission or missing part and they said this was how it was supplied to them so I will mail B&S and see why they didn't include such an obvious cap. maybe it isn't standard practice in birding to protect the eye glass end, i don't know.

In terms of value for money versus performance this gets a solid 9/10 for me. I'll wait till the next clear night and see how it performs on astronomy targets.

[Stargazer_00]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321177331919?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

might've helped to put up a link

[BinocularSky]

Box Content tab here says "Tethered front cap"

[FLO]

Nice review Stagazer_00

And it explains why we have been receiving emails from people wanting to check the Barr & Stroud Sprite 10x50 monocular includes a tethered cap.

It does. 

HTH, 

Steve