Review on Athlon Optics Cronus Spotting Scope, 12-36x50 ED by Sarah Moore

This is a nice little pocket sized spotting scope that offers excellent color accuracy, clarity and brightness in low light for its size. Its zoom eyepiece moves quietly without any harshness and with a nice slight drag that's just right for zooming without losing the target in the field of view, but the movement isn't exactly smooth. The start and slowing down of the eyepiece rotation to a certain calibration mark is a bit bumpy, but not enough to get the target out of view. Its fuselage has a fixed mount but I thought its small size might allow it to be aimed from a car with a window mount but no it doesn't work except for high targets in a narrow horizon which proved to me that window mounts function . only with straight sights or rotating mounts, no matter how small. However, at lower magnification it felt comfortable in hand when hand and scope rested on the fully open window of a car door (window all the way down). It worked so well given its handy size that I think that was what its designers intended. If you can bench this scope at a magnification range of 12-20 a tripod is fine, but at higher magnifications the eye relief starts to uncomfortably decrease even with a tripod, which is highly to be expected and therefore tolerable for short periods of time can be . The non-detachable case lacks a pair of buttons or Velcro to hold the eyepiece open and out of the way of the exposed zippered portion of the case. If you're willing to customize or throw away the case, you'll be happy. I returned this scope and bought an Opticron MM4 Travelscope (50mm) with an SDL zoom eyepiece to address the shortcomings of this 50mm Athlon Cronus, but I paid a lot more.