Celestron Regal M2 65ED Spotting Scope

As a company Celestron strives to stay on top of innovation while providing high quality products to their customers, from telescopes to microscopes, binoculars to spotting scopes Celestron ensures that they are up to date with the latest technologies. They even create smartphone and tablet apps to go along with their products. The Celestron Regal M2 is the successor to the well-known trustworthy Regal F-ED spotting scopes; and although it is the most compact version of the Celestron Regal M2 Spotting Scopes currently on the market, don’t let it’s size fool you.

In this in depth review we will see how the compact Regal M2 uses notable improvements to make this a high performance device at a huge value.

Design and Construction

The Celestron Regal M2 65ED boasts a waterproof, fog-proof, nitrogen-purged magnesium alloy body that weighs in at just under 3 pounds and comes in three different sizes, 65mm, 80mm and 100mm. The use of the magnesium alloy body reduces the overall weight of the spotting scope by more than 14 percent compared to the older models, and this material makes it extremely strong and durable.

What’s more, Celestron has designed this spotting scope to give maximum comfort to its users. The eyepiece mount measures a standard 1.25 inches, making it compatible with many varieties of telescope eyepieces. The eyepiece has a diverse magnification range, a rubber twist-up eyecup and a 20mm eye relief, for optimal comfort and accurate viewing during long spotting sessions.

Also, this scope comes with a fully adjustable lens shade as well as a fully adjustable rotating tripod collar, enabling you to easily fix the height and the angle of the spotting scope to get the perfect view. Rounding out the tripod collar’s significant features is a ¼-inch mounting socket and sighting aid; four built-in tripod screw threads on the base will fit just about any tripod. The tripod collar also offers a special locking system to make sure it is held in place once it is in the desired position. Thus, users have peace of mind knowing that the scope will stay locked in place, safely.

Due to its size and weight this spotting scope is perfect for observation in the field, the design makes it easy to carry around while mounted on the tripod, which is an important feature in any spotting scope.

Optical Performance

One of the more prominent features on the Regal M2 is its objective lens, which produces a clear and vivid image with a precise color scheme. Celestron uses a proprietary material for their best telescopes to help astronomers view stars and galaxies millions of miles away, and they use this same material to build the lens on the M2 65ED Spotting Scope, thus giving a very high quality picture. The lens has a 16-48x eyepiece with automatic zoom that reduces chromatic aberration to show remarkable contrast.

Additionally, the eyepiece adjusts with a simple turn or two, making it easy to accommodate the user’s individual situation while providing as accurate and comfortable a magnification as possible. Viewers can use a set of coarse and fine adjustments to modify the scope and create a personalized viewing experience. The scope also features a dual focus knob that is easily accessible to help you spot your subject quickly and with crystal-clear quality. The dual focus knob makes this product ideal for looking at objects both nearby and far away; and the dual focus mechanism has been upgraded making it two times faster to bring your subject into focus.

Furthermore, this spotting scope provides a long-range viewing field of 1,000 yards and has a 16.4 foot, or 5-meter, close focus capacity for clarity and precision. The Regal M2 is perfect for bird watching, long distance viewing, nature observing and even amateur astronomical observing. Regardless of the time of day this model is sure to provide top quality optical performance and the sharpest images available.

On top of that, the Celestron Regal M2 includes a T-adapter that makes it simple to attach a DSLR or film camera, perfect for those users whowish to startdigiscoping without a large investment.The Celestron Universal Digital Camera Adapter is quick to set up and makes it easy to take photos with point and shoot DSLRs. In under a minute, viewers can transition from traditional viewing to digital viewing and back again. This aspect is one of the scope’s greatest features because it’s perfect for traditional astronomers as well as the more technologically oriented viewer.

Glass and Coatings

Celestron uses it’s own special coating which includes BaK-4 prisms and a low-dispersion ED glass piece. ED glass is a material used to reduce the extent to which the light is dispersed as it passes through the lens. As the dispersal of the light is lessened, the image becomes more sharp and clear. Moreover, ED glass will reduce fuzziness around the edges while displaying greater color accuracy and contrast. Usually this type of glass is only found in more expensive scopes, however, by using it on the Regal M2, Celestron provides consumers exceptional views that rival its top of the line competitors. Plus, the extra-low dispersion glass provides maximum light transmission, which makes it ideal for spotting the smallest of creatures in low light or hidden in the brush.

Furthermore, these superior views aren’t solely dependent upon the ED glass in the objective lens. The Regal 65ED also boasts fully coated multi-optics. These XLT anti-reflective coatings use many layers of materials that are known to decrease the amount of light distortion that occurs when the light passes through the lens and are applied to every lens in the spotting scope, which maximizes the focus of the light as it passes through the lenses. These coatings combined with the ED glass, make for views that are extremely accurate and clear even at long distances.

Accessories

In the box you’ll find the Celestron Regal M2 65ED Spotting Scope, T-Adapter ring, eyepiece cover, lens cover, sliding sunshade and carrying case. The tripod is sold separately but as discussed above, the Regal M2 is designed to ensure an easy and comfortable use with any standard tripod.

Another excellent accessory for this scope is the smartphone adaptor that’s compatible with a variety of Apple and Android products; used to attach your camera to the twist up lens this adapter lets you take pictures that save directly to your phone for ease in uploading perfect photos straight to social media or emailing them to family and friends.

Celestron also makes a stay on case for this model of spotting scope. This case allows for extra protection from the elements without hindering the quality of view.

Other accessories include, the Stedi-Stock Black with Quick Release, a device that attaches to a monopod or tripod for extra camera support that comes with a shoulder strap and attaches into two strap lugs supporting up to 10 pounds; as well as the Celestron LensPen Tool, ideal for cleaning optical items including small aperture spotting scopes and eye pieces. The LensPen includes a useful retractable dust removal brush and a special non-liquid cleaning element that will never dry out.

Pros and Cons

The Regal M2 has many pros and almost no cons. Considering its size and weight, as well as the included carrying case, this spotting scope is ideal for observation in the field. Some users found the scope a little on the heavy side for this type of model, but other’s found the extra weight useful for stabilizing the scope in a good viewing location.

Certain users mentioned that the scope would droop if all the knobs were not tightened on the tripod head, which delayed set up if a rare species was spotted.

But overall, the majority of reviews were five stars. Reviewers enjoyed how compact this model is, how clear the images were and how well built the scope was including the use of ED glass and included carrying case.

Lastly, this scope is very well priced for the quality and comes backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

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