CelestronUltima 80 Angled Spotting Scope – 20-60x Zoom Eyepiece – Multi-Coated Optics for Bird Watching, Wildlife, Scenery and Hunting – Waterproof and Fogproof – Includes Soft Carrying Case

Since I'm reading several reviews for this product from unrealistic people who seem to expect $2500 performance from a sub $200 scope, please keep in mind I am reviewing a $160 scope, and not a $2500 dollar scope, and FOR THE MONEY (and over YEARS of use) I've found this to be an awesome little scope. As a tour guide, I don't want to spend a huge amount on a spotting scope to use on tours that is going to get kicked, knocked over, thrown on a dusty van floor and generally abused in situations involving crowds of people. My first Celestron scope was irreparably damaged by an unfortunate incident where it got knocked over and struck a boulder in Yellowstone and lost its focus, but by that time I'd had years of good service out of it, so for the price of a new one, I wasn't upset over replacing it. This scope does the trick for wildlife viewing and birdwatching with very good resolution and durability. People are always impressed by the wonders of high magnification even when comparing an inexpensive scope with an expensive pair of binoculars. This scope certainly is subject to some chromatic fringing towards the edges (mostly noticeable in snowy terrain) but it doesn't detract too much and is still an excellent view, quite sharp and overall very nice. People are totally wowed the first time they see that moving dot in a meadow over a half mile away suddenly transformed into a bear! My only criticism would be that the zoom function is frankly rather worthless, especially at the higher end and I seldom use it. I also have had clients unscrew the eyepiece inadvertently while trying to focus, even though I demonstrate where the actual focus is, so I make sure I check that the eyepiece is on tight. You can bet that when my current scope has another accident, I'll be replacing it with this scope once again.

Fast and good shippinggood packagingScope comes with a good, easy to use case. cel phone adapterImage is good till 40x, at 60x the chromatic distortion is big and quite evident, even a bit annoying as it affects definition and natural colors.Phone adapter is not easy to use. still trying to get the best of it.Besides that its an excellent equipment for beginners. You can see objects in a very long distance (a couple kms), it works pretty good on 20x and 40x, allowing you to have a good time enjoying birdwatching, its easy to focus and change optical distances.I'm quite happy with this scope, it will be used to work on a nature watching project with children so it will for sure be of good help.Its a very good price for what you get.

Humm, hit the tab key and my review in progress disappeared!The scope has a very nice overall fit and finish with good deep coatings on all visible lens surfaces. The focus knob is silky smooth with no detectable backlash. The eyepiece eye-relief is ample (I don't require glasses when viewing--see below) and the zoom is smooth. An audible sliding sound is heard when zooming, but it isn't objectionable.Speaking of glasses, if your glasses just correct for near or far sightedness, you don't really nead them at the scope; the focus range of the eyepiece will compensate for your correction without glasses. Those with astigmatism problems will need glasses however.Owning a premium 80mm ED telescope, I was able to do a side-by-side test with it and this scope. Overall, the optical performance is impressive. Some chromatic abberation is present at the higher magnifications, but even then, it wasn't objectionable. At 60X the ED scope clearly edged out the 52250, with sharper fine detail and a slightly brighter image. To be fair though, the ED telescope had fewer air-to-glass surfaces and the eyepieces (10mm and 30mm) were fixed focal length so that is to be expected. I'd say the Celestron 52250 gave 95% of the performance of the high-priced ED scope. At 20X I was hard pressed to see a significant difference. At 40-60X the image didn't have the crisp detail of the ED scope, but it was quite usable. Most of my birding is done at lower magnification anyway, so I'm not loosing much.On the moon, I was really impressed at an almost total lack of chromatic abberation! I could not see any "blue haze"--just a thin yellow edge. As a rough estimation of optical quality, I performed what is called a star test. In this test one looks at a star image inside and outside of focus. Frankly, I was very surprised by the test. I saw no optical defects and in fact, the patterns were text book perfect! It is amazing what can be done with computer generated optics these days.This isn't a $1000 scope, but if you want 90% of the performance at a fraction of the money, this scope will work for you. I'd recommend it to a friend. At the %154 price I paid for it, this is a real value!