I'd wanted to get one of the Cronus spotters for a couple of years, and finally did buy one a month ago. I have four other spotters to compare it to, although the oldest - a 1986 Tasco World Class 25x60 - isn't relevant as it's no longer available. My Kowa 661 has always worked well for me, although their TSN82 scopes outperform it by a fair margin. Over the past several years, I bought a Vanguard Endeavor 20-60x82 & Celestron M2 Regal 20-60x80 in the hope that one of these mid-priced scopes would be markedly superior to the 661, but the Vanguard fell short, and the Celestron doesn't represent enough of an improvement to satisfy the desire I had for a better spotter without getting into the $3000 & above level. If it hadn't been for the availability of the Athlon Cronus at the current reduced MAP of around $1000, I'd have probably just kept on using the Celestron and been done with it. I'd even invested in the 27x LER eyepiece for the M2 Regal, and had used it in a few XC high power matches. It's clearer than the 661, and for HP shooting, is really all I needed, being pretty close to the Kowa TSN82 in performance.
When UPS delivered the Cronus 20-60x86, mounted it and the Celestron on tripods and went out to compare them side-by-side. There's a big 117kv H-pole powerline that runs east-west right less than 100yds south of my home, so I set about comparing the detail/clarity of the numbers on the crossarms and the sharpness of details like the big stacked insulators that the cables hang from. Even though both these scopes have split focus rings with coarse/fine adjustments, I was able to see more detail with the Cronus. There was no doubt when I'd hit the sweet spot while focusing the Cronus, while I could keep fiddling back & forth with the Celestron's fine focus knob without experiencing quite the same level of sharp detail provided by the Cronus. There wasn't a large amount of difference between the two, but the Cronus came out on top, consistently. I'm going to turn 69 in a month, and my eye doc says I'm getting closer to being eligible for cataract surgery. So if the difference between the two scopes is plainly seen with my vision, I would expect there to be a clear difference for someone with younger eyes. The Cronus is heavier by several ounces, but it's also more compact. I think it's time for me to put the Vanguard & Celestron scopes up for sale in the PX here - unless I hit some sort of lottery jackpot, I'm done searching for a better spotter.
