Celestron 52304 Regal M2 65ED Spotting Scope

by people ...

Product Specifications

ED Objective Lens: Minimizes chromatic aberration, accurate color reproduction, increased resolution and contrast.
XLT Coatings (Fully Multi-Coated Optics)
16-48x Zoom Eyepiece and Standard 1.25” Eyepiece, Linear Field of View (@1000 yds) : 131-68 ft / 43-23 m, Close Focus - 16.4 ft / 5 m
Magnesium Alloy Body: This material is strong and durable, but lighter weight than traditional aluminum alloy housings.
Rotating tripod mount with detents: Place the orientation of the eyepiece in the best viewing position for application.

Product Description

Style:16-48x65 The Regal M2 spotting scope series is the next generation of our top-performing Regal F-ED spotting scopes. Day or night, the Regal M2 is optimized to provide the sharpest images available. You’ll love them for bird watching, nature observing, long distance viewing and casual astronomical observing. These top-of-the-line spotting scopes provide all the advanced features usually found on more expensive scopes, including Extra Low Dispersion (ED) glass. The series boasts a magnesium alloy body, decreasing the overall weight of the spotting scopes by more than 14% when compared to the previous model. The new M2 scopes also include an upgraded dual focus mechanism, allowing you to bring your subject into focus two times faster.

Product Reviews

Great scope at a decent price

First off, the optics are great. I took the attached pictures (base, 20x, and 60x magnifiation) around 6pm, so the light wasn’t great by any means, but even at 60x magnification, the images were bright. I think you could easily get 100x or more with a different eyepiece. Apologies that on some of these I didn’t do a great job focusing, but the scope itself can be focused very well, with both coarse and fine knobs. The 45 degree angle can make it hard to sight in. The slot on the extendable shade can help a bit with that. After comparing to many other scopes, I went for this one for a few reasons - on sale with rebate, fully multicoated with no chromatic aberration at default magnification range, t-ring adapter included for digiscoping, great warranty, and lots of features (rotating mount, coarse and fine focus knobs, shade to prevent glare, interchangeable eyepiece, etc.)

… Scope is a rifleman’s dream and would be a great choice for anyone who wears glasses while spotting

This Celestron Regal M2 LER 27x80 ED Spotting Scope is a rifleman’s dream and would be a great choice for anyone who wears glasses while spotting. The eye relief is 32mm which means I can look at targets comfortably with my prescription safety glasses on, and without jostling the scope. It’s important to note that the eyepiece comes with a long rubber eyecup installed which isn’t glasses friendly, however included in the box is a very short alternate rubber eyecup for wearers of glasses that goes on and protects the lens of your glasses from scratching on metal. That’s the ticket. The longer installed eyecup is meant for when not wearing glasses.Being a photographer I thought seriously of buying an adapter to allow me to use my Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L lens as a spotting scope, but I’m glad I didn’t because although that’s fine glass, it wouldn’t have had the eye relief and it weighs a ton. This scope, although big, is quite light due to the magnesium body. I’ve read that it’s a full pound lighter than the previous version due to changing from aluminum alloy to magnesium.I also have a Barska 20-60x60 scope so that my nephew and I can watch each other shoot and make derisive remarks regarding marksmanship, and that’s a fine scope for the money, but here’s what you get for the higher price of this scope.- Rotating mount. This is useful if you want to have your eyepiece at an angle just to the left of your rifle. Makes it so you barely have to move your head to see how you’re doing on the target. This also allows you to use a medium tripod with the vertical tube inserted upside down so that you can hang it underneath and get it right down on a high shooting bench. I use a Sinclair bench clamp with this which works great at my range, but it’s nice to have options.- ED glass. Minimized vignetting and virtually no chromatic aberration distortion. Crisp and clear all the way with no crazy prismatic colors messing up your view. Outstanding light collection in dark-ish conditions to boot.- Excellent focus control. One knob for big changes and another for fine adjustment. The fine adjustment knob is easy to turn with just a fingertip on the fly without displacing the scope.- With this particular model made for shooters, you get a very nice zipper case which can be left on at all times. It has a zippered relief hole for mounting and can be peeled away at both ends, then the peeled parts can be velcroed out of the way. Smart design.- This will vary from user to user, but I can easily see 30-06 holes on paper at 200 yards with my middle-aged vision, which is iffy even with glasses, but even worse using the Barska. Dialing in more magnification with the Barska doesn’t help because it’s more a function of clarity, which suffers greatly on inexpensive scopes at high magnification. My nephew does better with the Barska than I do, but he’s got younger eyeballs.It was a friend’s far more expensive Kowa ED glass spotting scope with an LER eyepiece that got me wondering if I could do well on my budget, so I took a chance and I think I did fine. I haven’t done a side-by-side A/B comparison, but I’m sure this scope will compare well.

Crisp and Clean optics! AWESOME

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.

Very happy with this spotting scope.

Far better than the price would lead you to believe. After reading tons of reviews on various scopes I took the chance I picked the Celestron. Glad I did.

It was not the scope.I returned the item and will purchase an upgrade from amazon a little later,probably ⁶⁄₁₇

The optics were inadequate

Scope itself is fine but the case it came in had the zippers …

Scope itself is fine but the case it came in had the zippers fail within 3 months (of very infrequent use, I might add).

Five Stars

good value for the price paid

Two Stars

Not very happy can’t see 22 caliber holes at 200 yards in Target

Solid Scope for the money.

Purchased for spotting rifle targets up to 300 meters and limited digiscoping.Fit and finish are excellent. All controls work smoothly and positively.

A little pricey but worth it!

My wife and I use the scope mostly for birding but I have also taken it out in the evening to look at the moon.

Five Stars

Love it

A Beast!

Have not seen a better set of Optics on the range since. Sharp and clear with a great microfocus. Lots of cheaper junk (bought two before this) that are not worth the money and…