Celestron 52252 100 mm Ultima Spotting Scope 45 Degrees, Grey

Bought this after comparing many different spotting scopes including some very expensive ones; mostly all the cheaper ones have fairly poor optics, there might be some good ones but I couldn't find any. It seems fairly difficult to get any objective reviews of the Celestron Ultima scope, most reviews are either advertising hype or people who haven't used it and based on conjecture. The Ultima build quality is very good, optics are nothing short of great especially considering this is not ED glass, image does go a bit dark at 60X but that's in the nature of the beast, at 22X to about 50X it is really excellent. Eye relief is fairly good too, I can keep my spectacles on even at full magnification. I've used this to look at birds at 10m (yes, 10m) to 500m and it's really useable when the light fades after dusk; general spotting up to several miles is excellent too but then you are really at the mercy of the atmosphere - all in all it's excellent, I can only imagine what trebling the price to buy ED glass gives you! It even has a built in T-adapter to mount a cameras, a camera lens of this quality and size would cost many hundreds of £.I mainly bought this for my daughter for astronomy, she already has a Newtonian but finds that really tedious to set up for quick viewing, no problems with this Celestron though. Although the experts will tell you that spotting scopes do not work well for astronomy work, the Ultima 80 is great. It may not suit the experts but for the casual hobbyist it gives really great images of the moon and planets (Saturn is a little small but the rings are clear). It's only drawback is the comparatively small field of view for astronomy, e.g. the best you can get in is two of the stars from Orions belt. Even the experts agree that the best scope for astronomy is the one you use most often, in our case this is the Ultima! It is light, easy to focus, gives, clear images (atmospherics allowing of course) and I (and my daughter) couldn't be happier. You do need a tripod, but that's the same for all spotting scopes. Amazon's price is better than most and delivery was very quick. If you are confused over spotting scopes and can't afford a lot of money then I can wholeheartedly reommend this one, I do not think you will be disappointed.

For the money this is a very impressive scope. It is also the winner of an award for its type and price range by top British scope users (the sky at night).The only draw back I can find with having a scope is the additional weight and that is true for all scopes not just this one. Perfect for those who want to enhance their wildlife watching experience but do not want to invest in the expensive brands which cost £300 - 1500.With the saved money you could invest in a carbon fibre tripod to help combat the weight issue.I chose to buy the Velbon Sherpa 500R from Amazon as well for around £70 and its a sturdy but versatile scope which suits the need of not just wildlife scoping user but also photography. Although the tripod is a bit on the heavy side I can still recommend it. I also urge you to buy a tripod which includes the quick release feature, it saves you much time and effort.Choose this scope and you will not be disappointed, unless you have loads of money to invest in the top of the range scopes which have an improved image quality for 10X the price. This improvement is not necessary for the everyday birder to enjoy or spot and identify wildlife. Thanks to this scope and others like it birding can be done very economically.I also recommend Bushnell as excellent and cheap binocular makers. The H2O range 8x42 is what I use and its a good binocular for the price, only £68 on Amazon! Again slightly heavy for some peoples taste but I wear them all the time and find them ideal and not too heavy at all.

Overall I'm happy with the price / performance of this scope both for bird watching / wildlife and some casual astronomy. As some have commented there is some chromatic aberration using this scope, but as is usual with CA this is noticeable in areas of extreme contrast, looking at the Moon for example, but for the price point this is not a surprise and not especially noticeable when bird watching. If you want zero CA you're looking at the wrong price range!Overall the image is quite sharp and bright and very pleasing, certainly good enough for my eyes when bird watching to pick out details and identify the species being observed. the scope is relatively light for it's size and the carry bag is reasonably handy.A couple of niggles, as some have pointed out the scope cant really be used with the carry bag, it really needs a velcro or other flap over the focus knob to make it accessible, then I think it will work "in the bag". The front dust cap is a bit weedy and pops off with the slightest touch, the eyepiece cap is much firmer and pushes over the rubber eyecup and has a tendency to also remove the eyecup leaving the camera adaptor thread exposed.Although I have a T2 camera adaptor I have not used the scope for digiscoping, I own some fairly good telephoto lenses and this scope is certainly no match for them optically but if you don't have such exotic gear in your camera bag I can see where this scope could be of some use.Update Sept 2024: Until recently I have been fairly OK with the Chromatic Aberration while birding but this has been mostly in Woodlands / Hills. After a recent trip to South Stack I found it very frustrating especially at high power in bright light the CA around dark objects like Porpoises and Cormorants against the sea or rocks was especially noticeable, not enough to prevent identification but enough to make it difficult.

I was looking for a decent spotting scope without spending an absolute fortune. These were on special offer, I was quite chuffed there was about 30% knocked off. They day after I bought it, the price shot back up so I was well chuffed. It’s a decent scope and is good for bird watching especially at our local bird reserve where I can attach to the windowsill and sit there for as long as I want. It’s not too heavy, maybe slightly bigger than I wanted but I’m not complaining I love it.