Regal M2 100ED Spotting Scope – ED Glass for Birding and Outdoor Activities – Phase and Dielectric Coated BaK-4 Prism – Fully Multi-Coated Optics – Dual Focus – 22-67x Zoom Eyepiece

I had both of these spotting scopes side by side for comparison. My results are as follows. Design: I'll state the obvious first since you can see most of this from photos of the two spotting scopes. Both scopes have a kind of rubber like exterior with the Vortex being a little "tacky" feeling and the Celestron being a little smooth. Both have rotating rings and a foot for attachment to a tripod. The Celestron fit my tripod adapter, the Vortex did not. Different sizes so beware. Objective cover for the Vortex is soft rubber push on, the Celestron has a solid plastic two clip cover like on most SLR lenses. The eyepiece cover for the Vortex covers the eye cup and the Celestron covers the entire eyepiece down to the scope body and is made of metal and is screwed on to the scope body. Both have sliding sun shades. Biggest difference externally is the picatinny rail on the Vortex. Celestron does not have one. The rail is for mounting a very small "scope" for finding object quickly. Really nice idea. The "slow" and "fast" focusing is on the top right on the Celestron and directly on top on the Vortex. I liked the Vortex on top, my son liked the Celestron focus. So, each to his own. Both have rotating eye cups. Optics: Well, they were virtually tied in quality of optics as far as I can tell. Note that the Vortex costs about 150 more than the Celestron. One difference in operation of the scope was the eyecup and eye relief. When you put your eye up to the Vortex and touch the eyecup edge with your nose for example you see a darkening around the edge of the image. If you pull your eye away from the eyecup it will fill and be ok. The Celestron view is perfect the minute you put your eye to the eyepiece. I noticed I had to search around a little to find the best view with the Vortex, but the Celestron was much more forgiving of having my eye out of direct line or at the right distance. Image acquisition was much faster with the Celestron. Eye glass wearers would not have an issue with either of them. Incidentally the Celestron advertises the use of a groove in the sun shade to help find an object faster. It is totally useless in the 65 mm scope. You can't find any place to look down the groove, the body of the scope is in the way. Maybe you can in their larger objective lens scopes. Also, the Vortex zoom is 15-45 and the Celestron is 16-48. No real world practical difference. Conclusion: I ended up keeping the Celstron 65. There were things I liked about them both but what did it for me was the image acquisition speed in the Celestron and forgiveness of eye placement. Eye piece cover was also nicer, more secure on the Celestron. As I mentioned, they were pretty much identical as far as image quality. The focus and zoom operation seemed to be just a bit nicer quality on the Celestron also. I liked the picatinny rail on the Vortex. A nice design. I may try to put one on the Celestron. By the way, it would be nice if the mounting ring shoe was reversed on the Celeston scope since most of the scope weight is behind the mount. My guess is that the 80 and 100 mm scopes balance pretty well with the shoe mounted this way, but the 65 is shorter and lighter on the front end making it balance differently. It is back end heavy. I contacted Celestron a few days ago about reversing the ring and they said it was not possible.

I received the scope today and immediately set it up. I liked that the eyepiece had a really nice eyepiece cover made out of a solid metal. Probably brass or something. I then put on a tripod and started focusing on objects in the distance. I used the sighting line on the lens shade to help site in. I found this easier than other spotting scopes I have used. Others have a tiny sighting scope that just seems to make the scope bulkier. I have a Nikon spotting scope and the spotter is plastic. Once I felt I was lined up I was able to use the course focus adjustment to focus on the objects. Once this was set the fine adjustment really brought in the object crisp and clear. The focus adjustments were easy to use, smooth and fast to set. I used various objects at variable distances. Very smooth to adjust the focus and found it was easy to set by feel of my hand. The eyepiece is a 16x to 48x magnification. I set the eyecup up since I do not wear glasses. Felt very comfortable. I started at 16x on objects and found it easy to zoom in and out by rotating the eyepiece. As mentioned adjusting the focus was easy to do with my hand while looking through the eye piece. The tripod mount allows rotation of the scope. Real easy to do, slight turn of the knob and the tripod ring rotates. As the ring rotates it clicks into different positions. I rotated it a full 360 degrees as the manual states. At the same time I adjusted the eye piece fairly easy by loosening the lock ring on the eye piece. Nice to be able to do this. I like to go to the gun range and shoot prone. I can see how the versatile positioning will work with the proper mount. The tripod mount is great because it has 4 holes to mount with. This allows to mount the scope balance. My Nikon has one hole so however the scope mounts is how it mounts. The Celestron mount is much better. After I setup the scope and practiced I disassembled and put in the carry bag that it came with. I drove out to the rifle range. I put some lead down range about 200 yards and was able to see my target crystal clear. I used 3 different rifles. .308 easily seen and clear, .223 clear and crisp, and .17 HMR no issues seeing how I did. I used standard silhouette targets, non color change. Highly recommended.

I am an avid birder and have been looking for a scope for a few years now. I finally decided to look through some scopes and do my due diligence on finding a great scope at a great price. This was not an easy task. Fortunately for me I live close to Cape May point where many birders come from all over the world. This enabled me to talk to many people about their scopes and actually look through many of them, which if you have been looking for a scope you know this is not an easy thing to do. Most stores are limited in what they sell. The hawk watch is sponsored by Swarovski so this enabled be to look through the top of the line scopes of the birding world. They were very nice, but was not willing to spend $2,500 or more on a scope. This is where I saw someone with a Celestron scope who was more than happy to let me use it for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t believe how bright and crisp the image was even a higher magnification ( even compared to the Swarovski) and when I was told what the price tag was I was sold. So I went home did more research and discovered this scope has great reviews and is priced quite nicely. Likes: Quality of the scope The clarity and brightness The weight The Price Dislikes: The only thing I can say is the where the focus mechanism is, but after using it for a day this is a non-factor and I can focus quickly after using after one day. I would recommend this scope to anyone, no matter what they are willing to spend. If you are looking for a tripod to match check out the Magnus VT-4000.

Very good optics for this price point. I only took away 1 star because it is so tail-heavy. I use this at the range out to 200 yards, and can clearly see .22 caliber holes against a black target.

I purchased the scope about 3 weeks ago. I've owned a Celestron Ultra80 for 10 years and quite honestly, it didn't get as much use as I thought it would. With raptors starting to hatch out in our area of CO, I grabbed the Ultra 80 and went looking for eagles. But I was disappointed in the chromatic aberration at full zoom and tricky eye positioning to get the best view. So, I went shopping.... I looked at a lot of scopes both 65mm and 80mm. Locally, the Celestron wasn't available except for a Regal M2 100ED, which I liked except for the weight. Went I check the Regal line on Amazon, the price could not be matched on any of the 3 available. Since I had the 80 already, I decided on the 65, and wondered if it was the right decision since the 65 and 80 aren't that far apart pricewise. I found the 65 to be a perfect compromise between zoom and weight. Color and image clarity, in my opinion, is excellent throughout the 16x-48x range with only a tickly of aberration at max zoom, easily removed if digiscoping. The weight is nice at about 4 lbs, about 8 oz less than the 80ED version and 6oz heavier than my Ultra80. I would've liked the tripod mount to be 2 inches closer to the eyepiece, but I use a longer arca swiss plate that balances okay. As far as I can tell, except for the objective lens and tube length, the prism and 1.25 inch eyepiece are the same throughout the line. I was tempted for a while to spend the extra for the Regal M2 80ED given a sale going on right now, but elected to keep the 65ED. The 80ED objective lens area (light gathering) is about 65% larger than the 65ED, but in actuality, when viewing something, it doesn't seem that significant. Bottom line, especially considering the price, I don't think you can go wrong with the 65ED or any of the Regal M2 line. Definitely recommended.

First, I would like to highlight the quality of the image delivered by the ED lenses. I did an image comparison with a Celestron Skymaster 15x70 binocular and the image is much sharper and the colors are much more natural. No chromatic aberration can be perceived, and the focus is very precise. Definitely it is worth the money if you are pursuing image quality. The telescope is highly portable, fits in your backpack, and can be deployed very quickly. For astronomical use, by using separate 1.25" eyepieces the 65 ED can give you a very bright image with a 40mm eyepiece (10X, 6.8 mm exit pupil), or high power with a 4mm eyepiece (96X). 96X is the maximum usable magnification in this case. As others have said, the telescope is tail heavy, so by using astronomical eyepieces the center of gravity is somewhat restored (The included eyepiece weighs 300 g). High magnification will require a good tripod. At the lower powers the telescope can be aimed easily by using the sight rotated 90° and aiming through the side. The included eyepiece will show you the discs of the planets and the rings of Saturn. Definitely for planet detail more magnification will be needed, using additional eyepieces. The main drivers for my selection were high image quality, quick deployment and portability. I live in Bogota, Colombia where cloud cover can change very quickly, so maximizing viewing opportunities is a must!

Great spotting scope. Very well constructed and easy to operate. Is very big and heavy and needs a heavy duty tripod to be used with it.

I purchased the Celestron Regal m2 100 and found it to be a very well constructed device. The body is made from magnesium. The sunshade deploys very smoothly and protects the objective lenses from glare. The focus mechanism is two pieces, course and fine and operates very smoothly. Picture quality at the lower power settings is excellent. At 60 power the image softens slightly. Because of this, I purchased a Baader Mk 4 eyepiece to go with it. Now the optic quality is outstanding. Even at the highest power. It is large and requires a robust tripod, but it provides a crystal clear view. Very happy with my purchase.

Cumplió con mis expectativas.

Very nice scope worth the £650, nice crisp image gets bit darker if zoom past 45x but it's still great value, have upgraded mine to the 100mm version which has perfect zoom up to 67x loses no brightness. Both scopes are heavy though need a good stable tripod.

Non essendo un esperto do' il mio parere personale: il cannocchiale è molto luminoso, nitido fino a circa 55X poi degrada parecchio fino a diventare quasi inguardabile a 67X, lo zoom è buono e la rotella per regolare la messa a fuoco è fluida e precisa, si trasporta bene con la sacca in dotazione che è comoda ma un po' troppo scadente come qualità. Tutto sommato è un buon prodotto lo consiglio a chi vuole un spotting scope luminoso senza spendere un capitale anche perché devo ammettere che agli ingrandimenti medio bassi si vede benissimo.

Great optics, solid feel, everything works smoothly.

Telescopio de gama media alta,con una gran nitidez sobre todo a bajos aumentos. A la máxima potencia,la visión sigue siendo muy razonable. Las aberraciones cromáticas son prácticamente inexistentes en el centro de la lente,notándose muy poco en la periferia.Muy manejable,con mucha profundidad de campo,lo cual permite que con el fantástico ajuste fino que tiene,se enfoquen muy rápido y sencillamente los objetos. Los detalles como la tapa del objetivo y la protección del ocular lo hacen muy rápido de montar y desmontar para guardarlo en la funda,la cual es perfecta,con unos velcros dispuestos para poder incluso colocarlo sin tener que desenfundarlo. Diría que a este precio,es muy buena compra.