Celestron 52247 Ultima 65ED 45 Degree Spotting Scope
by Celestron
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: CelestronModel: 52247
Color: Grey/Black
Accessories:
- AmazonBasics Universal Camera Case for Digital Cameras HF (Black)
- Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 [OLD VERSION]
- Corel Photo & Video Pro X3 Bundle [Old Version]
- AmazonBasics Camcorder/Camera Bag with Shoulder Strap (Black)
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Celestron 52247 Ultima 65ED 45 Degree Spotting Scope
Customer Review: Nice small scope, little chromatic aberrations
Summary: 4 Stars
Buying this spotting scope was kind of a hit or miss, as I couldn't find any review at all, on any website.
The reviews of the non ED version were pretty positive, so I decided to take my chance and buy it.
Pros:
1. Very portable (small, not too heavy).
2. Very little purple fringing.
3. Waterproof and fog proof.
4. The cheapest ED scope on the market (you can get it for about 330 USD).
5. The focus knob is easy to use, and allows for fine focusing, but it can be moved very fast as well.
6. Good resolution at all the zoom levels (you will need to refocus after changing the zoom).
7. It has a T-Ring adapter in the eye piece, allowing you to connect a DSLR camera to it. But see the cons too.
Cons:
1. You can not use 1.25" eyepieces! This is really annoying, because the eyepiece it comes with is just maybe 1mm smaller than the standard 1.25" format used by a lot of telescopes and spotting scopes. 1.25" eye pieces can give you a lot of flexibility and better quality that a zoom eye piece can not give you. That's the main reason why I give it 4 stars.
2. The T-Ring adapter is at the end of the eye piece, so you can not use prime focus. Instead, you have to use eye piece projection. Now, the problem with the eye piece projection in this particular set up is that at the minimum zoom you will get severe vignetting. To get rid of the vignetting you have to go all the way to 48x zoom, and that's way too dark for a camera. Even at ISO 1600 I had to have a shutter speed of 1/40.
Long rant:
After using it for a few days, and 'benchmarking' it with other spotting scopes, I am pretty happy with my purchase.
Since I do not have a resolution chart, I took a medicine bottle with small writting on it (the letters were about 2 mm), placed it ~25 meters away, and looked at it with my Celestron C90 Mak, this spotting scope, and a Yukon 100x100 (not mine). Ufortunately, I didn't have access to a similar sized spotting scope, so the test was a little unfair.
The Yukon couldn't fully zoom in at such a close distance. The text was, however, readable, but there was a lot of purple fringing.
The C90, with a 15mm eye piece (80x zoom), could also resolve those small letters, but not as good as the Yukon. There was very little purple firinging, which is normal because the main elements are two mirrors.
Finally, with the Ultima 65ED, the text was unreadable at maximum zoom. I am not sure if this is due to not being able to zoom in enough, or because of the lack of resolution. The purple fringing was pretty similar with the C90 (very little).
Testing all 3 spotting scopes with some real life scene (for example looking at a field 2KM away) had similar results, the big guys won, which I pretty much expected. However, the Ultima 65ED was pretty close, and under most of the real life circumstances you really don't need more than 48 zoom.
My overall recommendation is to buy it if you need a nice portable scope that you can take with you wherever you go, including on plane trips.
But if you do not plan to take it with you anywhere, and would like to have some fun looking at the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter, more zoom, and the ability to use different eye pieces, then get the C90 Mak (which is 150 bucks cheaper). If you have more money to spend, probably the best thing to do is to go to a brick and mortar store and compare try all kind of scopes until you can find the best one for your money. But in its price range, I think you will have a hard time finding something better.
Description of Celestron 52247 Ultima 65ED 45 Degree Spotting Scope
65mm (2.6") diameter 45° angled refracting spotting scope, waterproof, 386mm focal length (f/5.9), multi-coated optics, low dispersion ED glass, 16-48x zoom eyepiece, sighting tube, soft case.Telescopes
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