Is it a digital camera or is it an eyepiece? It's both! That's Zeiss's new approach to digiscoping and it looks promising. Just stick the Zeiss DC4 digital camera eyepiece in your Zeiss Diascope spotting scope and start digiscoping. We haven't been able to get on hands on one yet, but the DC4 is an interesting concept. The conventional way to digiscope is to mount a standard point and shoot digital camera, via an adapter, over the eyepiece of nearly any spotting scope and start taking pictures. This describes 99% + of digiscoping, today. As a digiscoping alternative, some manufacturers have tried building a camera into the spotting scope, but sales and consumer response have been limited. The problem with this approach is that it limits the versatility of your system. You don't get a full blown spotting scope with typical spotting scope magnification and other features and you're stuck with the camera even when you don't want one. Then, too, having a camera on board your scope reduces your typical lifetime spotting scope warranty to a year or two because of the electronics. An example of this approach is the now defunct Kowa TD1. No one ever criticized the quality of this unit - it was typical Kowa all the way - but it came up short as a high performance spotting scope. Zeiss appears to have side-stepped this issue with the DC4. Remove the DC4 and you are back to your standard Zeiss Diascope. Will it work? Will it sell? Only time will tell. If it does, you may see the idea spread. Stay tuned.

The summer weather is upon us. Flowers are blooming, the trees gave way to all the green leaves, the grass is vivid green, and the bright sun brings days of warmth and happiness. All this beauty outside makes you wish you can drop all the stress in your life and take a weekend off in a beautiful forest preserve or along the shore of a lake, river, or ocean. In order to get the best experience out of a camping trip you'll need good-quality equipment that won't let you down and will help you enjoy yourself to the maximum.

You'll be relieved to know that we have taken the step in finding the great quality camping gear, Brunton's high-end, high-tech family camping equipment. Check out the world's brightest camping lanterns, cooking tools and utensils, camping stoves like the burner stove, camping cookware, Wind River Range, grills, and much more! Please, visit our Brunton Camping Supplies page soon for the full product line.

The idea that you can make deep-sky (faint objects) more visible by increasing magnification (and decreasing exit pupil) has been circulating for sometime. The idea is that increasing magnification will darken the sky background, thereby making faint objects stand out more. How much truth is there to this notion? In my experience, it does work - sometimes. In other words, it is like many other observing techniques. It works, but not all of the time. There are simply too many variables in observing for a one-size fits all approach. I've had my best luck with this when observing with large telescopes. Large apertures give you more light to work with and using a telescope gives you access to many different magnification and eyepiece options. Typically, I've found there will be one combination of magnification and telescope aperture that gives the "best" contrast between the sky background and the object and that, true to form, this is sometimes at surprisingly high magnifications. Of course, this is sometimes at lower magnifications, too. It depends on so many things - the type of object, it's magnitude, your telescope, your eyepieces, your skill as an observer and, perhaps most importantly, observing conditions. We all know those change night by night and even hour by hour. Then, too, what constitutes "best" in terms of contrast is largely subjective. It's as much your call as much as it is the next observer's. Tomorrow, I will look at this notion of increasing magnification to darken sky background and apply it to binoculars. Joanie

Lately, there have been a lot of buzz around the office. We have finally got our hands on the new Meade mySKY Space Exploration Guide Device and let me tell you, many, many have been eager to try one of these out. Why not? If we're going to be selling one of the new gps sky guides, a relatively new idea, why not get a taste and feel of what these are made of. Our product specialists couldn't wait to take the mySKY GPS Device home and put them through all kinds of tests: from our jaded astronomers to our grizzled personal firearms expert. After hours of tests on various constellations, stars, and planets, our astronomy guru concluded:

As far as additional information on objects, the MySky is definitely a winner. It could keep you entertained for hours with all the excellent additional information on objects and astronomy in general. The MySky definitely gets the nod here.

After a night of testing under a stormy sky, our firearms specialist derived that:

It’s [Meade mySKY GPS Device] so easy to use, anyone can do it, even a techno-challenged person like me. I’ve always wanted to know what a few of the regular night lights were, either stars or planets. With the descriptions given to me by My Sky, now I’ll know.

Of course, we wanted some feedback from let's say the 'average consumer' and gave other employees a chance to test this item. The end result? They are all thrilled and even wanted another night under the stars with the mySKY. Meade my SKY not only appeals to astronomy enthusiasts but the general public as well. In addition to being a great educational tool, Meade Sky Exploration Guide definetely deserves a place under your recreational activities. As one of our marketing analysts said, "It is one of the most unique date ideas that you just can't wait to repeat over and over again!" Preorder your Meade mySKY today and in no-time you will know the celestial charts better than the back of your hand. To read a full review written by our firearms expert please visit the following page.

We have been offering tactical products to our customers for a very long time now. Our goal of being a one-stop shop for tactical and related products is rapidly being carried out. We have recently uploaded to our site a new brand called 5.11 Tactical. We are still in the process of adding their entire line to our store. As of now, you can check out 5.11 Tactical products such as uniforms, belts, vests, boots, watches, bags, gloves, patches, and much more. For example, if you're looking for military clothing, 5.11 Tactical serves both men and women with their shirts, polos, crew shirts, v-necks, parkas, jackets, pants, and shorts. 5.11 Tactical also offers many products for military, law enforcement personnel, security, SWAT teams, Hunters, and more. They've got the whole deal. Today, I was looking at their Stainless Steel Titanium Watch which calculates for you shooting results, shows date, a second time zone, and other cool features. Can't wait for all the other stuff to get uploaded to our site!

Labels: uniforms belts security military belts watches jackets police clothes tactical