The picture and the quality of the zoom is extraordinary, there is no doubt of that. The idea that I was trying to express was that while we can see the people, and birds, and what have you, they are fuzzy, you wouldn't be able to recognize them. It is amazing that you can see them at all. The thing that I was trying to point out is that the fuzziness is due to either the limits of the optical system, or atmospheric effects. They do not, as you noticed, show any sign of the pixilation that happens when you try to zoom most digital (or digitized) photos. So that even in that small area there are still a enough pixels to show the shapes, rather than a lot of spots in the general shape of a person or whatever.
As far as being used by sniper. I'm afraid that the telescope doesn't lend itself to mounting on a weapon. The telescope they used is probably a pretty big object. As explained in Ethan Siegel's blog post I put a link to up above bigger is better when it comes to optics.
Bill Gill
