Celestron 52238 Mini Mak 70mm Angled Spotting Scope – Maksutov Spotting Scope – Great for Long Range Viewing – 25–75x Zoom Eyepiece – Multi-Coated Optics – Rubber Armored – Tabletop Tripod Included

The media could not be loaded. This fits the criteria for a light-weight, pick-up and go. The main purpose will be astronomy. I envision plenty of other use cases. I'll stick with the universe.All the components were packed neatly and individually inside the compartments of the carry bag. It took 5 minutes to put together. I had to wait patiently for a tripod (home use) and mini dobsonian stand (road use) to arrive before setting up the finder scope. I also ordered a 90° diagonal for night viewing. The 45° degree is great for birds on the lake, and uncomfortable when pointing towards the planets.The finder scope is fine. It requires a different technique to align your telescope than using a red dot. Complaints in this realm are a matter of preference. Unless you're using a Go-to system, you're never going to point at something you can't see.The views and images are very clear and crisp. My photos through the supplied 32mm eyepiece don't do this device justice. In 5° weather, I opted to point the telescope through double paned windows, a major No-No, but you get the gist.This far, I'm pleased with my purchase

Thanks to the weather so far I have only tried the scope for terrestrial use and I am astonished by the image quality. Its sharpness and clarity are well beyond what I expected for such a small and inexpensive telescope. The build quality is very solid and the included eyepiece is very good with no distortion or chromatic aberration. I also used the telescope as a lens for my EOS 20D and the resulting images were very good as well (it requires an inexpensive T ring adapter to hook the camera body to te rear of the telescope).The included backpack is quite simple but gets the job done and it is the perfect size to carry the telescope tube, the viewfinder (unmounted), the 45 degree prism (unmounted) and several eyepieces.The only minor complaint is that the included eyepiece included no covers so that when it is not mounted both ends are exposed and if it is mounted still one end is unprotected.The viewfinder alignment is very simple and it takes just a few minutes to get it done and from then it does not move.Complement this with a Celestron 8-24 mm 1.25" zoom eyepiece and you get a wide range of power to suit your needs.UPDATEThere was a short break on the clouds some nights ago and I could watch Jupiter. Of course the image is nowhere near like illustrations from astronomy books but is quite a distinctive feeling to know that you are gazing at the real thing. I am sure that the atmospheric conditions were not great and because of that Jupiter came out as a small whitish circle but I could still see some color bands and 3 moons nearby. No luck with the moon yet.Please get a decent solid tripod. I tried with a standard photography and video one and the result is quite bad. The whole thing shakes with the slightest touch on the focus knob. Fortunately I also have a Manfrotto tripod with a ballhead and this setting is much more usable but I still would ask you to get another head, a ballhead is far from ideal for this use but on the other hand is very solid.

Not the spectacular scope they claim, but adequate. I bought a STURDY tripod that allows it to be positioned sideways, now its a nice range scope and can be viewed through while sitting at shooting position. Probably 300 yard MAX.

Bought this scope for target shooting at 300 yards. At shorter ranges our rifle scopes were sufficient for identifying shots. However, at 300 yards it began to get difficult to differentiate shots, especially if they were close to one another or other marks on the target. With the Celestron C5, we're able to easily differentiate .204 and .308 on Shoot-n-See targets easily, .308 on cardboard without much trouble, and on day with good visibility .204 can also be seen on cardboard with a bit of difficulty. While we haven't tried it farther than 300 yards, with a .308 on Shoot-n-See targets I think you'd be good to 600 yards or so (as long as it isn't a hot day - the heat shimmer distorts things). We had also tried a Vortex Diamondback 20-60x80 (having had great success with Vortex rifle scopes), but found this far superior to it.Some things worth noting:* Because this is based on a telescope, the eyepiece is interchangeable with other 1.25" mount eyepieces. In our case, we didn't use the eyepiece that came with it, but instead use an 8mm - 24mm zoom eyepiece (Celestron 93232). You can find the effective magnification by dividing the focal length (1250mm) by the eye piece's. So in this case, it would be 52x to 156x. The eyepiece that comes with this scope has a fixed 50x magnification.* It comes with an amazing carrying case. The Vortex had a cheap bag with a zipper on it. This comes with a nylon (or similar - not sure it is technically nylon) case that has custom cut foam in it that everything nestles into nicely. The cut-outs in the foam also are able to hold the 45 degree mirror and the eyepiece comfortably (in fact, in our case we have both eyepieces in it).* Focus is extremely sensitive, but the focus mechanism still has a good feel to it and is geared in such a way that you don't easily overshoot the focus without noticing (it takes something like 40 turns to go from 20' to infinity).* That said, if the sun is out or the ground is hot, the heat shimmer is sufficient to make it difficult to find the best focus, and even if you do, it does make it more challenging to clearly see your shots. That's not the scopes fault. With a cheaper scope or lower magnification you might not even notice the shimmer from the heat. With this you definitely do. Still, even with that, it's good for 300 yards.* At this high of a magnification, any little touch makes it shake, so get a stable tripod. We ended up purchasing a tripod head that is really meant for telescopes - you get it pointed in the right general direction, then use knobs to slowly dial it into position. That's a heck of a lot easier than playing with a ball head or even a decent pan and tilt head. That head is the Orion 7033 precision slow-motion adapter.* I also ended up mounting this using the same quick release plates I use with my camera. Those are made by Giotto's. The MH649 long quick release plate has sufficient space on it to tighten down on both of the tripod screw holes on here, which is extremely solid. Even with that, there's still some play in the tripod head, so once you get it lined up, you'll still want to look through it without quite touching it.* Being a telescope, there's a lot of other fun things to do with it. It is sufficient for some amateur astronomy. And Celestron makes mounting hardware to attach a DSLR camera to it.Honestly, for this price I couldn't be happier.