Celestron 52252 100 mm Ultima Spotting Scope 45 Degrees & AmazonBasics 127cm (50") Lightweight Tripod with Bag

Great value, good optics

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.

Good item. Would recommend buying a real good tripod though. The moon filter fits into the eye rubber if you put it in the wrong way round. But still a good item

Really good optical instrument. Bought for taking pictures of the Moon and Planets. Initial results are good, pictures showing Jupiter and some of the moons. (Jupiter was low down and quite faint). And a close up of the Moon and craters.Should get better results on a clearer starry night, so work in progress.(Click on the last picture for full view, Jupiter and 6 moons)

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.

The scope arrived in good time but I found the eyepiece zoom felt like it was filled with grinding paste not grease on the thread and was notchy at both ends of travel. So I returned it for a replacement. This arrived before the original was collected. Well done Amazon!Alas the replacement had the same fault but not quite as bad. I arranged a return but was contacted by Amazon who said as it looked like the batch was faulty they would refund my money. In the meantime I found someone who had one and they told me it was quite common on this product at the cheaper end of the market so I cancelled the return and refund, keeping the second one. It's got a 10 year guarantee which set my mind at rest. I contacted 3 other suppliers who checked their stock and also found the eyepieces not quite smoothNow to the scope, a few people have commented that the quality deteriorates towards the 60x end of the zoom. Yes it does but very slightly. I found the optics to be excellent even with this tail-off. I think the eyepiece could have done with some sort of locator to stop it turning when zooming - you have to have the eyepiece on tight to stop this. The case is very good and I bought a quick release adapter for my Manfrotto tripod.Very happy with the performance and had it not been for the lumpy zoom and lack of eyepiece locator I'd have given it 5 stars however I'd give Amazon 5 stars for customer service.