Celestron 52265 C90 Maksutov Spotting Scope by Celestron
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Digital camera reviews of Celestron 52265 C90 Maksutov Spotting Scope
Digital camera Review: Great spotting scope, but not so great for photos
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good spotting scope, and for the money it is hard to get something better. The only reason why I am giving it 4 stars is that if you want to use it as a 1200mm lens for your DSLR camera, you will be dissapointed. I also found the included eye piece to be slightly unconfortable, and I had to keep my eye/head very still or else the image will dissapear.
Pros:
Cheaper than many other spotting scopes.
Accepts standard telescope eye pieces
No chromatic aberrations
Low distortion
Well built - it fell off my tripod twice (the tripod mount was not the best) and it survived without any damage.
It can be used both for terrestrial and astronomical use.
Can be mounted (with a T-ring adaper) to a DSLR camera (prime focus).
Cons:
A little bulky and heavy, so you need a GOOD tripod. Don't even think of using a cheap Chinese tripod, it will just not work with it.
f/13.3, which is pretty slow. That means it's not so good for low light conditions, and if you plan to use it as a telephoto lens, you'll need a high ISO (something like 800 or 1600, even during optimal conditions). Keep in mind that the long focal length will magnify even the smallest vibration.
The resolution is not so good when used as a telephoto lens. For example, if you take a picture of a full moon, and then view the picture at 100%, it will not be sharp, no matter how much you try. Same thing with birds and other terrestrial objects. And this is not due to the atmosphere movement.
Due to the design (secondary mirror obstructs some of the light), the real aperture is slightly smaller, and you lose a little contrast as well.
If you plan to use it as a telephoto lens, you should be aware that focusing is very, very difficult. Unless if you have a camera capable of Live View, you will find that many photos are out of focus. This is also due to the very shallow depth of field.
To conclude the review, if you do not plan to use it for photography, then you can't go wrong with it. If you do plan to use it for photography as well, go on flickr.com and search for Celestron c90 to see some samples from different users, then decide if the quality is good enough for you.
Digital camera Review: Great with Nikon D80
Summary: 5 Stars
Celestron C90 Maksutov Spotting ScopeThis is a great addition to my lens. It works as a telescope for the grandkids and as a telephoto for my Nikon.Digital camera Review: Nice for the price!
Summary: 5 Stars
This durable compact scope is equally at home viewing birds or planets. It has a tough rubberized exterior and a built-in lens cover. It also comes with a handy padded nylon case to hold the scope and accessories. This scope is really great for travelling and can be used with any 1/4-20 photographic tripod. With a T-adapter and T-ring (aka T-mount), the scope can be used as a manual 1200mm telephoto lens for your SLR camera. It can also take standard 1.25" telescope eyepieces and accessories as well as some other accessories made for SCT/Cassegrain telescopes.
I've used this scope for extreme photographic close-ups of finches as well as for viewing the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, etc. and have been very happy with the results. The views are much clearer than the typical toy telescopes sold in department stores. I would recommend picking up some additional eyepieces over the included 32mm if you intend to use the C90 for viewing planets -- maybe a 20mm and 12mm eyepiece as well as a 2X short Barlow. I would also highly recommend using a very solid tripod, alt-azimuth mount or, if you intend on doing lots of astronomy or astrophotography, an equatorial mount. Cheap tripods will vibrate too much and make aiming, focusing and viewing very difficult and frustrating.
Great small scope!
Digital camera Review: great spotting scope
Summary: 4 Stars
As the eyeballs get older, it gets harder and harder to see bullet holes at 100 yards and 200 yards, and my previous 60mm 12x scope was just not helping enough. So I picked this up for my birthday and have tried it out in a variety of different roles.
This is a fairly heavy scope, so you need a very solid stand. The desktop mount from my previous scope was not in the right ballpark. Fortunately I found an old heavy-duty tripod in the closet and have been reasonably pleased -- the stand is excellent for spotting, but not quite stable enough for effective photography.
At first I was concerned that the minimum magnification of 38x would be too much, but it turned out to be perfect for 100 yard and 200 yard shooting at the range. The field of view was about 2 targets wide at 100 yards, with 30-caliber holes very easy to spot and very easy to see the details that you need to distinguish a single hole from overlapping hits.
I also tried some photography using an adapter with my Canon A570IS 7.1 Mpixel camera. I had to use the optical zoom function on the camera to get a full field of view, so the minimum magnification was very high. The effective resolution that I got from the images was much less than the 7.1 Mpixel nominal resolution of the camera, but I have not been able to experiment enough to attribute the loss of resolution to poor focus (which is quite tricky at these levels of magnification), camera jitter, camera optics, or Celestron optics (unlikely). If I could find a serious industrial strength tripod with hydraulic adjustment I suspect that the results would be more exciting.
Definitely glad to have this scope -- maybe I will figure out how to attach it to my astronomical tripod to see if I can find a star or two....
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