Every once in a while you come across something really strange in the birding optics line. The Zuka Scope is a small (4 inch) Newtonian scope designed to be hand held. There is an extra prism in the external focusing mechanism that turns the image back along the long axis of the telescope. They call it a Zuka because you rest the tube of the scope on your shoulder like a bazooka, with your eye at the eyepiece and your left hand on the focus knob. There is a nylon strap hand grip for your right hand to make holding it more secure. (Or, for the left eyed among us, you simply switch hands and shoulders.) The body of the scope is ABS plastic. The secondary mirror is mounted on a glass plate that closes the normally open end of the Newtonian tube and the primary floats on a very well designed, fully adjustable, all metal mirror mount (or cell as it is called in the astronomy world). The focus mechanism is a rather crude friction affair, also cased in plastic, with a brass sliding tube, and the whole thing is held together with an astonishing number of brass screws. It is 18 inches long, 5 inches in diameter, and weighs just under four and one half pounds. The Zuka Scope comes equipped with a very odd looking 28mm eyepiece that yields 18 power, though, with a little fiddling, you can fit any standard 1.25 inch astronomical eyepiece.
The Zuka Scope was designed by an Olympia, Washington birder, astronomer, hiker, general all-around naturalist, outdoors type who wanted a scope that could be easily carried and used without a tripod. After building several by hand, mostly for local birders who found the design interesting, arrangements were made to have the scope produced commercially in St. Petersburg, Russia, by one of the primary optical contractors for the former Soviet space program. The current Zuka Scope is entirely made in Russia, and comes with a certificate of optical performance signed by the opticians at the factory.
The strangest thing about the Zuka Scope, however, is how well it actually works. Stick the thing over your shoulder, line up the target with your eyes, turn your body naturally toward it, settle your eye behind the eyepiece and there you are. The view at 18X is easily as steady as 10 power binoculars, and, with practice, could quite likely be (as the Zuka Scope brochure claims) as steady as 7 power. The 4 inch mirror makes for a bright, high resolution image. (The optics, by the way, seem very well made and are quite obviously of high quality.) It is easy to get a bird in view, and easy to keep it there. If you have ever dreamed of following hawks in flight at 20X, the Zuka makes it easy. Those wee flits, possible warblers, across the canyon, way beyond the reach of binoculars . . . no problem for the Zuka! That nest in the far top of the maple 6 miles from the nearest road, hey, that's Zuka Scope territory. The scope is just small enough and light enough to stick in a backpack on extended outings. I can see it coming in very handy on Christmas Bird Counts, Breeding Bird Surveys, and day-long hikes to far birding sites. Since you don't have to carry a tripod, it makes having a scope along a viable option for most excursions. And, as with the Celestron C5, there is no reason not to take the Zuka out under the stars as well. The classic Newtonian design with the light grasp of the 4 inch mirror and the fairly fast F5 focal ratio make it a natural for galaxy and nebula hunting under the dark skies of the greater outdoors.
The design, or rather the execution of the design, does have a few problems. This is not an expensive scope, as scopes go ($329, direct from Zuka Scope, with a 30 day money back guarantee). Still, the focus mechanism is unnecessarily crude. The friction drive slips and tips and jumps. It works, but just barely. It also needs just a bit more extension to allow for closer focus. Then too, it is impossible for anyone who wears eyeglasses to get close enough to the supplied 28mm eyepiece to eliminate the shadow of the secondary in bright light. The shadow is particularly large and very persistent. You find yourself looking around it all the time. This problem is easily cured by unscrewing the eyepiece and inserting an astronomical eyepiece with longer eye relief. You might have to do some minor machining to get one to fit . . . the plastic barrel that the eyepiece is supposed to slide into was slightly tight on the unit I had for testing with most of the 1.25 inch eyepieces I had on hand, but it is nothing a little sandpaper and a half hour of work wouldn't fix. The best match I found was a 20mm LV distributed by Celestron (around $100). It slid right in with no problems, eliminated the obstruction shadow entirely even with eyeglasses on, and boosted the power to a very holdable 25X. The view through the Zuka/LV combination was nothing short of amazingly good. It is the kind of thing that would seriously tempt you to leave your binoculars at home. The $49 28mm Edmond Scientific RKE eyepiece is also a very good match, eliminating the secondary shadow and giving a much better view than the supplied Russian glass. If I were buying a Zuka Scope, I would figure the price of a good eyepiece into the purchase.
Then too, the scope cries out for a carrying strap and suitable attachment points on the tube. The Zuka is rugged enough so that I can see myself sticking the endcaps on (excellent endcaps, by the way), slinging it over my shoulder, and carrying it most anywhere I might go . . . if it had a good solid (wide, comfortable) carrying strap. Making one would not present much of a problem for someone handy, and even without anchor points it could be attached securely with some sort of velcro band arrangement around the two ends of the tube, but a little forethought would have made it easier.
Finally, it appears as though the glass plate that holds the secondary is completely uncoated. I suspect that even a single antireflective coating would improve the image contrast noticeably (though it its quite good as it is).
Despite its minor shortcomings, the Zuka Scope offers a very high level of functionality at a very reasonable price. It works. If you don't expect the fit and finish of $2000 Questar, the Zuka will do everything it was designed to do. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever yearned for a truly portable, tripod-less, spotting scope, or anyone who has ever looked up from a campsite deep in the wilds, far from city lights, to see the Milky Way spilling across the sky like a living thing and thought, "Boy, I wish I had my telescope here!"