Celestron 15-45x Zoom Refractor 2"/50mm Spotting Scope Kit

Comments about Celestron 15-45x Zoom Refractor 2"/50mm Spotting Scope Kit:

Bottom-line: I got this for $ and for that amount, it's a good value. The scope is a light-weight singlet objective design that comes with a small tripod and cloth and hard cases. The focus knob works smoothly without too much resistance. Image harpness is fair across the center two-thirds of the image, but blurs at the edges, and the eye-piece starts to lose it at higher magnifications. There is significant chromatic aberation (yellow tinge) at the edge of the field at all magnifications. I'm focusing on the negative here, so do understand that I grade on its price point. The nice thing is that it has good enough imaging for my application of looking at bullseye targets 50 yards away in daylight, while being small and light enough to fit easily in a bullseye pistol box. For longer range applications, and/or where you might care more about the quality of the image and color fidelity, I would spend more money and get something with a ED doublet.

Comments about Celestron 15-45x Zoom Refractor 2"/50mm Spotting Scope Kit:

Includes Two cases one hard and a soft one that fits inside

Optics are decent!

Comments about Celestron 15-45x Zoom Refractor 2"/50mm Spotting Scope Kit:

I use the scope for checking targets on a 10 meter air rifle/air pistol range, not for anything outdoors or at long range. It's optically quite good at 10m and one of the few scopes said by the maker to focus that close. The 15 mm zoom setting lets me see an entire target at once, and it's above average crisp to the edges, maybe a little soft in the corners. At 45mm it's sharp enough to see very fine detail including whether a pellet hole is or isn't touching the line.

I was impressed by the tripod too. It doesn't wobble and the pan head has little or no backlash. Generally well built, but 2 week's of use doesn't tell the whole story, of course.