Observation device for targeting a target object, being built as telescope, spotting telescope, telescope, night vision device, monocular sighting device or binocular sighting device, having an electro-optical range finder, in particular laser range finder, comprising: ▪ a transmitting unit comprising a light source, in particular a semiconductor laser or an LED, for emitting pulse-mode-like intensity-modulated optical radiation as light pulses, ▪ a receiving unit for receiving a portion of the optical radiation, said portion being reflected from the target object being targeted with the observation device, by means of a photosensitive electrical component and for converting it into an electrical reception signal as incoming pulses, in particular comprising a photodiode, specifically an APD or PIN photodiode, ▪ a conditioning unit for conditioning the reception signal, in particular in the form of impedance conversion, filtering, amplification, band limiting and/or heterodyne or homodyne mixing, comprising at least one amplifier stage, for generating a conditioned reception signal as output pulses, ▪ an analogue-to-digital converter for digitizing the conditioned reception signal and ▪ an electronic evaluation unit, which is designed in such a way that a distance from the distance measuring device to the target object can be determined on the basis of a signal propagation time with the aid of the digitized reception signal, wherein the amplifier stage is designed in such a way that it has a non-linear input-output characteristic below the saturation of the amplifier stage, the input-output characteristic effectuating an amplitude dynamic range compression, wherefore the amplifier stage has a first gain factor for a first amplitude value of the reception signal and at least a - compared to the first gain factor lower - second gain factor for a - compared to the first amplitude value higher - second amplitude value of the reception signal, the first gain factor and the second gain factor being unequal to zero, characterized in that the input-output characteristic is a piecewise linear function with at least one knee point and at last two discrete gain factor ranges each having a constant gain factor. ▪ a transmitting unit comprising a light source, in particular a semiconductor laser or an LED, for emitting pulse-mode-like intensity-modulated optical radiation as light pulses, ▪ a receiving unit for receiving a portion of the optical radiation, said portion being reflected from the target object being targeted with the observation device, by means of a photosensitive electrical component and for converting it into an electrical reception signal as incoming pulses, in particular comprising a photodiode, specifically an APD or PIN photodiode, ▪ a conditioning unit for conditioning the reception signal, in particular in the form of impedance conversion, filtering, amplification, band limiting and/or heterodyne or homodyne mixing, comprising at least one amplifier stage, for generating a conditioned reception signal as output pulses, ▪ an analogue-to-digital converter for digitizing the conditioned reception signal and ▪ an electronic evaluation unit, which is designed in such a way that a distance from the distance measuring device to the target object can be determined on the basis of a signal propagation time with the aid of the digitized reception signal,