Customer Reviews

Celestron 52302 Regal Refractor 80mm F-ED Spotting Scope

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As far as operation of the scope it's Excellent. Has great clairity of objects at 300 to 400 yards. Operation of Spotting scope is easy with the coarse & fine focus knobs.
Only draw back is soft case that's included with spotting scope,It fitted way to tight. Contacted Celestron & within approximittly 6 weeks I had a new replacement case that fits just fine.
Overall I highly reccomend this scope, for it's price it's by far A BEST DEAL. Celestron Customer Service was Personable enough to resolve the case issue. Keep in mind, the Scope & Case are manufactured in CHINA.
Wish I could have afforded JAPANESE,AUSTRIAN,or AMERICAN made optics, this was my best compromise.

WOW! and WOW!

The first WOW! is for the selling merchant, Adorama. I placed our order late Monday night, from the West Coast, where we live. The scope arrived, via US mail, today, Thursday. Adorama is in New York City. They evidently received the order Tuesday morning -- and we have it two days later. Unbelievable.

The second WOW! is for the scope itself. I studied every review I could get my eyes on, of every spotting scope I could afford, including the two Amazon reviews -- with special attention to "Better View Desired" who do superbly detailed reviews. This had to be the one. But just to check, we tried five different scopes in stores. None seemed to be all that great. So we placed our order. The scope arrived. It's a good-looking instrument (as well as a good LOOKING instrument. We tried it out on our back porch, using a good quality (but not terribly expensive) tripod. Wonderful brightness, at every magnification. The fine focus allowed us to see unbelievable detail. Everything worked as it shoild.

One thing we intend to do is to buy one of those elastic band eye patches, so we can cover one eye and not have to squint. The angle scope has a major advantage over the straight-on scope: it's easy to use. When we look upward at the moon or stars, we do not have to have a six-foot tripod extended to its limit. You'll probably like that. Also, with the band that attaches to the tripod, we just loosen the knob, rotate the scope, and, viola! the eager spouse, remaining seated, gets the same view the first spouse got.

If you wonder why this scope is worth the money it costs above a lesser quality scope, we can provide our reason. We are birders, not hunters; so we want to see every tiny detail of the birds we watch. Furthermore, feathers do some amazing things with light, and we love getting a great view. For a hunter, more interested in seeing where the prey may be concealed, this degree of detail and trueness of color might not be worth the incremental cost. In years past, we had one spotting scope prove inadequate, then a second one disappointed us. So we went years with just our good binoculars. But we'll enjoy this scope. Pretty soon, we'll attach our SLR digital camera, and see how the scoped photo compares with our Canon 300mm lens.

One more thing. It has the Celestron no-fault warranty. A third WOW!

I have been an optics nut for a while, I own some Zeiss products as well as celestron etc. I wanted a zeiss spotter but I can't justify the cost even though they are worth it. I bought this 65 f-ed a couple of months ago and have had it out on top of some mtn's in my area. The thing performs flawlessly, it's sharp to the edge of the field and only limited by atmospheric defraction. I am totally pleased with the unit, the only thing that's a bit much is the size and weight on a 5 mile hike you have to really plan on making room in a good sized day pack, other than that it's the perfect spotter for casual terrestrial viewing. It's like an American Zeiss.

My spouse and I are newly energised birders, and, after recently kitting up with new bins, thought that a scope would be a valuable additional birding tool. I bought this spotting scope after reading a number of positive reviews on the Net. The combination of ED glass and eyepiece versatility at this price was the clincher.

We are not optics experts, and though we haven't used a quality scope previously, we are quite impressed by this scope (context: spouse has Leica bins, mine are new "Chinese" ED optics). Views seem bright with good contrast and colour through the zoom range with the supplied eyepiece. Build seems good, though only time will tell, and the dual focussing and zoom operate smoothly.

A day or two after its arrival, spouse and I went out to a local nature reserve inlet for a spot of late afternoon birding. Approaching the hide, we could see a fair collection of birds on a stony strand about 50 meters away: several white-faced herons, pied stilts, spur-winged plovers, and oystercatchers. And a collection of about a dozen shags on their roost about 80 meters away. Across the inlet, about 1.2 km away, with the scope, we could just make out a few royal spoonbills amongst the gulls.

A few smaller birds, barely visible to the naked eye, arrived on the strand. We took these to be banded dotterels, until spouse spotted through her bins what she suspected was the male shore plover (a rare endemic and a first for us; after 1880 it disappeared from the NZ mainland and its population was confined to the NZ offshore islands and estimated at 70 pairs; it is now bred in NZ only in protected reserves). I took some sightings and a few photographs through the scope that clearly showed the male shore plover. The local Conservation Authority advised us that these photographs represent the first confirmed sighting of this bird in this area. A few local twitchers have since made the trip and have made confirmed sightings.

Not bad for starters. Hard to beat that for a demonstration of value, a rewarding acquisition.

Now, a review of the "transaction"

Expedited delivery, to New Zealand!?

Amazon didn't offer the normal "priority international" shipping option, of about $44 ($NZ64), for this order, but instead only "USPS expedited delivery" for about twice that amount - $85.95 ($NZ125.40), so that's a difference of about $NZ61. What do you get for all this $61 worth of expeditiousness?

Well, for starters, NZ customs applies 12.5% duty on the shipping cost. So the duty on the additional shipping cost adds another $NZ7.66. The consignment got to Godzone quickly enough - ordered 11 pm Tuesday, in NZ with duty payment (as expected) requested about midday Thursday. Then the locals muddled around and finally delivered the goods the following Monday. For doing this, they billed me a $NZ25 customs handling fee and added another $NZ19 worth of fees and disbursements. All of this frigging around, by my reckoning, costing a total of $NZ113. Expedited delivery? Maybe. Expedited charging - definitely. Rip off - I reckon.

A consignment two weeks later from Amazon sent "priority international" took about the same time to transit, and incurred none of these additional charges.

Apart from the duty, none of these other additions was applied to a similarly valued "priority international" consignment (not from Amazon) from the US last July.

Suggestion to NZ purchasers/Amazon/Adorama: forget "expedited". Hey, it's going to New Zealand! Put your clocks back a decade. We're patient here. "Priority" shipping, at one third the cost, will do nicely.

Wow this is a great piece of equipment. The adjustments are easy to use and allow quick focus on the object of interest, in my case birds. Very clear image that has allowed me to make identifications of birds that previously were a dot in my binoculars. Nice balance and combined with a Manfrotto 701HDV,055XV Kit is a great unit.

We bought this for dual use, gazing at stars and spotting targets. This was an excellent purchase. Definitely need a steady tripod to hold the focus. Recommend 'buy' to others.

I wanted to buy a spotting scope for day & occasional astro viewing. This scope is brilliantly made, easy to use and has pretty good optics. You will need a tripod of course due to its weight. I searched reviews of various spotting scopes & this Celestron Regal 80mm is perfect for bird watching and spying on objects miles away. The moon looks amazing and I picked out all four moons of Jupiter and saw the planets' banding easily. Lifetime replacement warranty, quality optics, excellent price and can be used for digi-scope photography. The workmanship was far better than I expected; you will not regret buying one of these beauties. It came packaged real well & made it all the way to New Zealand in perfect condition. Very swift service from Amazon and the retailer. Get one....set-up in seconds for hours of viewing pleasure!

Took the spotting scope to the range today for the first time since I bought it and the scope worked great. At the 100 yd line I could see the holes in the target clearly at 20x. At 60x the view was just a little shaded, but not much. The weather was rain and overcast. I took a look at the 1000yd number boards from the 100 yd firing line and could see all the damage done to them clearly at 60x. I made the decision to by Celestron thinking I could use it with my other eye pieces from my telescope. Would not focus down low enough to use a doubler with the zoom eye piece supplied, but I will try my other eye pices with it later in the year when the weather is warmer. Just had one oportunity to look at the moon outside and will be excited to use the scope this summer for star gazing. I will get a table top tripod that will make fine adjustments for verticle and horizontal adjust that will be a good addition to this scope.