Hawke Frontier 20-60x85 scope

New telescopes appearing on the market are quite scarce in comparison to new binoculars so, when Hawke announced a whole new range for 2006, I naturally became interested. Launched in April this year, with an 85 mm objective lens, the Frontier 20-60x85 is the largest in the series and is competitively priced at £349, within the budget end of the market.

This angled-bodied scope weighs 1,850 g with its eyepiece. The latter is a striking, ‘no-nonsense’ deep and chunky instrument, recalling the big Pentax zoom eyepieces and accounting for just under 400 g of the total weight. The body is 20 per cent fibreglass, and there is a protective rubber apron around the bottom half of the basal section which houses the prisms.

The body’s narrow ‘waist’ features an adjustable ring moulded to the tripod attachment foot which allows the scope to be rotated while mounted, and there is a neat transparent viewport built into the ring which enables the degree of rotation (+/- 120°) to be measured. The ring is adjusted and held in place by a screw with a teardrop-shaped leverhead. A lightweight plastic lens hood pulls out both to reduce glare and to help shield the objective from rain. The remainder of the waterproof, sealed body is rubber-painted in dark green, and the nitrogen gas filling prevents fogging.

Attachment of the zoom eyepiece is by bayoneting with a very positive locking ring, which itself click-locks the assembly firmly into place. As this eyepiece is compatible with different-sized telescopes in the range, it was pleasing to see three different scales of magnification featured around the casing of the zoom. I found the zoom itself was generally easy to operate using the broadly milled turning ring, and the eyecup – thinly covered with rubber – twists out and locks, albeit loosely, in four different positions to vary eye relief. However, I was unable to obtain a full field of view when the eye cup was extended beyond the first two settings.

Focusing is achieved using a centrally mounted knob with a deeply milled rubber covering of approximately two finger widths. Turning freely and smoothly, it is easy to use, but beyond 45x magnification I found it increasingly difficult to obtain a sharp image, although the image itself remained consistently bright. I attributed the brightness to the fully multi-coated lenses and the large lens diameter, which allow more light to enter the system and ultimately reach the eye.

Hawke extols its ‘ETE’ (edge to edge) lens coating system, which is said to produce a “crisp, high-resolution image with real sharpness of colour” and, taken literally, the image does indeed remain sharp at the very edges of the field of view – notwithstanding the comment above on magnification.

I found that the image produced colour which was very close to natural tones with, in some lights, a barely noticeable bluish cast, but I felt the contrast was perhaps a little subdued. The only notable image defect was the degree of chromatic aberration, or colour fringing, which was particularly evident when viewing dark birds – Coots for example – against water in bright conditions.

Other attributes of the image that are noteworthy are the generous depth of field, and the field of view which, at 19.2 m with 60x magnification, is on a par with some models from the top end of the price range.

I would like to have tested this telescope with a fixed magnification eyepiece, which would have no doubt resulted in an even brighter, possibly sharper, image and a wider field, but the Hawke range currently features only zoom eyepieces. The Frontier 20-60x85 comes with a soft, stay-on case.

Not unduly heavy for its size and, in this respect, favourably comparable with expensive and budget scopes alike, this good-value and smart-looking telescope will no doubt find its way on to many a prospective first-time buyer’s ‘big scope’ trial list before the year is out.

Tech spec

• Price: £349 (including zoom eyepiece)
• Size: 420x155 mm
• Weight: 1,850
• Field of view: 41.9-19.2 m at 1,000 m
• Close focus: 5
• Gas-filled: yes
• Waterproof: yes
• Guarantee: 10 years