Scope Power
- Thread starter black_bear
- Start date
An engineering approach
It is a widely known fact that the Mark I eyeball will resolve 1" at 100 yards when young. (To test this put a bottle cap out at 100 yards and look for it. Young people can see it with ease. Older folks may have some trouble especially if colors do not contrast.) This resolution is about 1 minute of angle.
To resolve 1" at 400 yards you need a 4x magnification, and 10X at 1000 yards. (Surprise, this is part of the reason for 10x military scopes.)
Now if you need to see smaller details you can go to 15x to 20x and this will improve resolution subject to optical efficiency loss which makes this a non linear function.
Large game do not require such high resolution and lower power scopes are lighter and smaller. As usual, the ultimate decision depends on your requirements.
Optical and mechanical quality of scopes is generally a function of price.
black_bear said:
It is a widely known fact that the Mark I eyeball will resolve 1" at 100 yards when young. (To test this put a bottle cap out at 100 yards and look for it. Young people can see it with ease. Older folks may have some trouble especially if colors do not contrast.) This resolution is about 1 minute of angle.
To resolve 1" at 400 yards you need a 4x magnification, and 10X at 1000 yards. (Surprise, this is part of the reason for 10x military scopes.)
Now if you need to see smaller details you can go to 15x to 20x and this will improve resolution subject to optical efficiency loss which makes this a non linear function.
Large game do not require such high resolution and lower power scopes are lighter and smaller. As usual, the ultimate decision depends on your requirements.
Optical and mechanical quality of scopes is generally a function of price.
How does magnification translate from long distance to the size and distance you see in the scope? For instance if you have 4X magnification will an object that is 400yds away appear to be 100yds away? Or is it more complicated than just a little division?
