20-60x60 & 25-75x70 Spotting Monocular Telescope

Half an hour on the glass without the stiff neck.

You are parked on a rise looking at something two kilometres out — a gate, a mob of goats, a track dropping into a creek — and you cannot tell what it is. Binoculars get you close enough to know something is there and no closer. A straight scope gets you closer again and gives you a stiff neck in ten minutes, because you end up bent over the back of it with your head cranked sideways.

That matters more than comfort. When your neck aches you stop looking properly. You take a quick squint, decide it will do, and drive down anyway — and the thing you did not look at long enough is the washout, the fence you were not meant to cross, or the weather coming over the range behind you.

This one sets the eyepiece at 45 degrees to the barrel. The scope points at the target and you look down into it, so you can stand at a camp table or lean on the bonnet and stay there. Two sizes: 20-60x on a 60 mm objective, or 25-75x on a 70 mm objective. Both come with a soft case, a tabletop tripod, an instruction leaflet and a cleaning cloth.

The maker’s mark printed on the barrel is LUXUN, with the model designation beside it. Everything we could read off the product or its packaging is in Specs. Everything we could not confirm is in Limits, said plainly — including the field of view.

What It Does

• Takes the crick out of your neck: the eyepiece sits at 45 degrees to the body, so you look down into the scope instead of along it and you can keep looking.
• Answers the track question: work out whether that line across the valley is a graded road or a washed-out gutter before you commit the vehicle and an hour of daylight to it.
• Starts where binoculars stop: 20x at the bottom of the range is well past what a normal pair of field glasses gives you, and it goes up from there.
• Zooms without changing anything: one eyepiece covers the whole range. You wind the power up rather than swapping glass in and out.
• Sits on its own tripod: a tabletop tripod is in the box. At these magnifications your own pulse moves the picture more than the detail you are hunting for, so it is not optional gear.
• Travels in its own case: a zippered soft case comes with it, so the glass rides in the ute without collecting grit.

Key Features

• 45-degree angled eyepiece: marked and annotated at 45 degrees on the supplier’s own diagram.
• Two objective sizes: 60 mm on the 20-60x, 70 mm on the 25-75x. The objective is the front glass, and it is what sets how much light the scope can gather.
• Variable zoom eyepiece: the model designation printed on the barrel reads 20-60X60 or 25-75X70, matching the two options on this listing.
• Coated glass: the objective carries a green film and the eyepiece a blue one, both visible in the close-up photographs. The coating grade is not printed on the product.
• Focus knob on top: a single knurled knob sits on top of the prism housing, where your hand lands when the scope is on the tripod.
• Hood over the front glass: a black hood stands forward of the objective in every photograph of the assembled scope, shading the lens from low sun and drizzle.
• Rotating tripod foot: the body carries a mounting plate with a knurled thumbwheel, so you can roll the scope over and re-level it without unbolting anything.
• Army green body: green barrel with a black objective housing and eyepiece. There is no colour choice at checkout.
• What is actually in the box: scope, zippered soft carry case, tabletop tripod, instruction leaflet and cleaning cloth, all laid out in the supplier’s own packaging photographs.

Limits

The top of the zoom range is not the useful end

Magnification and brightness pull against each other, and the arithmetic is simple enough to do here. Divide the front glass by the power you are using and you get the width of the beam of light leaving the eyepiece. Sixty millimetres at 60x, or seventy at 75x, is under a millimetre either way. That is a dim, narrow, jumpy picture, and heat shimmer coming off a paddock in the afternoon will finish off what is left of it.

Expect to spend most of your time down nearer 20x to 25x, and to wind the power up only when the light is good, the air is still and the scope is on something solid. That is true of every spotting scope ever built at any price, not a fault in this one — but the big number on the box is the one people buy, so it is worth saying out loud.

What we could not confirm

• No field of view figure: the barrel does carry a field-of-view marking, but it is printed in feet at a thousand yards and the digits are not legible in any photograph the supplier provides. We are not going to convert a number we cannot read.
• No weather rating: there is no IP rating, no nitrogen or argon purge marking and no waterproof marking anywhere on the body or on either retail box. Treat it as a fair-weather instrument, dry it off, and expect it to fog internally if you bring a cold barrel into a warm humid cab.
• No prism or coating grade: the glass is plainly coated — you can see the films in the close-ups — but no prism type and no coating specification is printed on the product or the packaging.
• No eye relief or exit pupil: neither figure is stated. If you view with your glasses on, we cannot tell you in advance whether you will get the whole field or only the middle of it.
• No close focus distance: not stated, so we cannot tell you the nearest thing you can bring into focus.
• No dimensions or weight: neither box prints them and the supplier does not state them. It is a two-hand instrument that packs into the supplied case, and beyond that we have no number to give you.
• No thread size on the tripod mount: the mount is threaded and the supplied tripod screws straight into it, but nothing on the product states the thread, so we cannot confirm it fits a camera tripod you already own.

Things it is not

• Not a phone camera lens: three of the photographs on this listing show a phone clamped over the eyepiece. That clamp is in neither packaging photograph and it is not part of what you are buying.
• Not a field tripod: what comes with it is a tabletop tripod. It works on a bonnet, a table, a rock or a tailgate. It will not stand at eye height in a paddock and it will not hold steady in wind.
• Not a rifle scope: no reticle, no turrets, no mounting rail. It is an observation optic and nothing on it is made to sit on a firearm.
• Not an astronomical telescope: one of the two retail boxes in these photographs is printed Telescope and the other reads 70 TARGET MIRROR. Both are machine-translated supplier packaging for the same terrestrial spotting scope. Do not buy it to look at planets.
• Not a brand we can vouch for: LUXUN is the maker’s mark printed on the barrel. Naming it is all we can honestly do with it — there is no standard, approval or transferable warranty attached to it.

Q & A

Which one should I buy, the 20-60x60 or the 25-75x70?

The 70 mm has ten more millimetres of front glass, so it gathers more light, and its top magnification is higher. If you are glassing in decent daylight at a kilometre or two, the 60 mm does that job and is the smaller thing to carry. If you are out at first and last light, the extra front glass is where the difference actually shows up. Both use the same case, tripod and eyepiece arrangement.

Is it waterproof?

No rating is printed anywhere on the scope or on either box, so we cannot tell you it is sealed. Wipe it down, keep it in the case when it is wet and do not submerge it. A cold barrel brought into warm humid air will fog on the inside, and nothing on this product claims a purge gas to stop that.

Does the phone holder come with it?

No. It turns up in three of the photographs on this page because it is part of the supplier’s own image set, but neither of the packaging photographs includes it. What is in the box is the scope, a soft carry case, a tabletop tripod, an instruction leaflet and a cleaning cloth.

Why does it say LUXUN on the side?

That is the maker’s mark, printed on the barrel next to the model designation. We name it because you will see it when the thing arrives and we would rather you were not surprised by it. It is not a mark that carries any approval, standard or warranty we can pass on to you.

Will it fit the tripod I already have?

The body has a threaded mount under a rotating plate, and the tripod supplied with it screws straight in. The thread size is not marked on the product, so we cannot confirm in advance that it matches a camera tripod sitting in your cupboard.

How long does delivery take?

Allow 10 to 14 days from the day you order, and up to three weeks to be safe. Regional and remote addresses take longer again. Delivery is free to Australia and New Zealand.

Specs