It's no surprise that the number of people asking about telescopes has taken a sharp increase of late. After all, telescopes comprise one of the biggest gift categories we have here at OpticsPlanet.com.

The big seller this year under $100 is no surprise, either. The Bushnell 3" reflector continues to move out here by the truckload. It's an OpticsPlanet exclusive. Where else can you buy a mostly metal telescope at such a low price?

114mm reflectors such as the Tasco Galaxsee, though, tend to be the bread and butter scope for beginners, with similar models from Meade and Celestron vying for top honors.

My favorite beginner telescope continues to be the Dobsonian. I still regard a small Dob such as the Celestron Starhopper 6 to be the most user friendly design ever made for someone who wants maximum performance with a minimum of bells and whistles. I strongly believe that more beginners would stay with astronomy if they follow the KISS principle and leave all the high tech gadgetry behind.

I had a nice day on Thanksgiving at my sister's place in suburban Chicago. She has a wonderful garden and they love to feed the birds. I hadn't been there 5 minutes when I saw a Cooper's hawk strafe the bird feeders. (I had seen this same bird earlier this year and it was a Cooper - it is large even for a Cooper.)

Later in the afternoon, I noticed a sparrow doing a peculiar kick below the feeder. Only one bird does that and I have seen it many times. It was a Fox Sparrow and a beauty - all reddish brown and heavily streaked.

Today, I was feeling a little deprived for not having done more birding this last week, but with our busy season upon us, I had to take care of business first. Just when I was feeling a little sorry for myself, my two resident raptors decided to make an appearance. The Red-tailed (I have since named him Clancy) showed up first, but did not make a kill, and moved on to the other areas of the airport. The Kestrel showed up a bit later, but had better luck. I watched her catch a rat and then fly up on a utility pole to devour it. No sooner had she disappeared, than a Cooper's rocketed through the parking lot and then was gone.

All in all, not a bad couple of days.

I was doing my laps (walking) around the complex on my lunch break yesterday, doing my best to work up my cardiovascular levels, when I picked up a very faint noise amid the roar of traffic. At first I thought I was imagining things - too long in the big city and all that sort of thing - but then I heard it again. Since I used to be a birding tour guide at a sanctuary in central Nebraska for years, I knew exactly what the sound was. It is not a sound you ever forget.

I promise, there is nothing quite like the distant calling of a flock of Sandhill Cranes as they circle high overhead, climbing ever higher, calling as they go. When the wind is just right, perhaps, or maybe when someone in the group decided the time is right, the whole flock moves on in their journey, this time to the south.

So there I stood, on the pavement far below, relishing this little taste of the wild amid the hustle and bustle of urban life. For a girl from the country, stuck in the big city, this was a great gift. Thank you Earth Mother.

I had another chance to examine the new Leica D-Lux 2 and once again, I have visions of a D-Lux 2 sitting in my purse, waiting for me to put it to work at a moment's notice. It isn't just the all the new slick features that appeals to me, it's also the "feel" that you get with any high end camera. The Dlux-2 just seems to exude luxury and snob appeal in a way that only a Leica can. Nothing like that little red Leica ball to make an optics addict like me swoon.

Just about the time the trees are first bare of leaves, the number of inquiries we get on telescopes here at OpticsPlanet.com starts to increase at, uh, an astronomical rate. Holiday shopping for many people involves a telescope. Since these are rather complicated instruments, I have written a couple of articles to help customers sift through the maze of technical detail. For customers about to buy a new telescope, How to choose the right telescope reviews some of the basics. For customers who just received a new telescope as a gift and are overwhelmed with indecipherable instruction manuals, I offer Telescope FAQs And, as always, I am here to help on all matters optics.

It's nice to know some of the great classics in birding binoculars are still around and still being made without any compromise in quality. I recently had a chance to test the Swift Audubon 820ED on both birds and stars this last week and I was very pleased. The ED of the "still made in Japan" 820ED makes the standard 820 even better. Resolution in the ED version was about as good as I have seen in an 8x bino and will compare favorably with any premium grade roof prism. Stars were crisp pinpoints of light and Mars showed itself with only a tiny hint of flare.

Yes, I know, the published eye relief of 17mm is a bit misleading. It's more like 12mm with the way the eyepiece lenses are buried in the housings, but I had no discomfort at all (my preferred eye relief is 14mm) and still got a nice field of view without that pinched in feeling. Also true that no one is going to accuse this, or any other porro prism binocular, of being slim and slender, but I did not find the size or shape uncomfortable after several hours of viewing. Bottom line is that the 820ED passed my "can't put it down" test with flying colors due to its fine optics. Anyone looking for Leica, Swarovski, Zeiss class performance on a middle-class budget, the Swift Audubon 820ED is well worth considering.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating a compact binocular for astronomy, though many people are surprised at just how much a little 8x20 compact can see from a dark site. As it happens, I was testing a few binos on stars last night, and was getting a little annoyed at some of the flare I was getting with a couple of mid-priced models, so to be sure it wasn't some wired atmospheric phenomenon, I grabbed my baby Leica Ultravid 8x20 and turned it on Mars. I am here to report that the atmosphere was just fine (though a bit turbulent). So was the Ultravid. Mars was a beautiful round little disc without any flare or coma. Now if I could only get all my binos to do that, I would be very happy.

I received some samples of the new Swift UltraLite 8x42 929B roof prism and the Swift UltraLite 8x42 961G porro to test today, and my initial impressions of both were favorable. These are some of the latest products being made in China for Swift and they are tribute to how well Chinese optics can be made. I'm not going to say I like them as much as the Japanese made Swift Audubon 828HHS roof or the Japanese made Swift Audubon 820, but the new UltraLites are a bargain, considering the price.

I watched a Kestrel hunting across the expressway at the airport the other day. From my office, I could see that it was a beautiful male and quite possibly the same one I have been seeing all summer, though we do get some migrating through here this time of year, so can't say for sure.

I can definitely say he was fun to watch, though. Kestrels are such amazing acrobats. This one darted across a runway, then flew up straight and began to do its characteristic hovering. It then folded its wings, dove and bottomed out in a long glide just inches above the ground. It then moved on down the runway and repeated the whole process.

All in all, a beautiful sight. Of course, the fact that I saw the whole thing through a Leica 7x42 Trinovid I was examining for a customer didn't hurt, either.

I revisited the Kowa BD42 C3 binocular today at lunch and decided to retest it against a formidable opponent, the Nikon Premier LX 8x42. I am happy to report that the Kowa acquitted itself nicely against this superb Nikon.

The LX was only a touch sharper on the test chart. In fact, I really had to work hard to see any difference between the two, but in the end, I leaned toward the Nikon in the end for its slightly better edge sharpness. Remarkably, image brightness between the two was a dead even draw. I suspect this is a result of Kowa's new C3 phase-coating. In any event, the Kowa was excellent for its color and brightness.

Out in the field, I was surprised to find I liked the views on birds a little better with the Kowa. Color and detail seemed ever so slightly better on a flock of Chipping Sparrows with the Kowa, but again, the difference was by a hair (or should I say feather). Could have easily gone the other way with another tester.

In the end, I concluded that the biggest difference between the two is price. When you consider the Nikon Premier LX is more than twice as expensive as the Kowa BD42C3, it makes the Kowa a tremendous value in a birding glass. The Nikon is certainly worth the asking price when you consider its construction, especially if you will be using a bino under extreme conditions, but the Kowa's lighter weight and slimmer profile make it a winner in the handling category.

Nice job, Kowa.

I looked out my window the other night ans saw Mars up in the sky, so I grabbed my little Kowa 663 spotting scope and cranked the magnification up to 60x. Now, 60x is is definitely a wimpy magnification on planets, but in a good optic like the Kowa, I could see that the planet was not uniform in color across the surface. Can't say I made out specific surface details, but I definitely knew I was looking at Mars. Can't wait to look at Mars in a big scope. Will make a trip to my friend's house this week so we can catch the red planet in her LX90. Too bad I didn't talk her into getting a Vixen VMC330. Maybe next year.