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Pros - Budget-friendly spotting scope with 75X magnification - Lightweight but rugged - Easy to use focusing knob and zoom eyepiece Cons - Outside joints aren’t closely sealed - Hazy image beyond 50X magnification - Not fully multicoated

Howdy, and thanks for stopping in at my review of the Gskyer 25–75×75 Spotting Scope. This puppy features a generous 75mm objective lens and an angled eyepiece (despite Amazon’s claim that it’s straight) for comfortable, stress-free viewing. Let’s put the glass through its paces and see how it compares to the competition, shall we?

What Comes in the Packaging?

Any time you’re looking to buy optics of any variety, it’s important to know what does and doesn’t come with your purchase. Some things are “must-haves,” some are nice additions, but the manufacturers never seem to agree on which fall into what categories. Here’s what you’ll find when you open up your new Gskyer spotting scope:

• The Gskyer 25–75×75 spotting scope
• Lens caps
• A cleaning cloth
• A tripod
• A nylon carrying bag
• The user manual

The tripod is almost a throwaway, with thin metal legs that don’t offer any leveling options. This particular accessory clearly wasn’t designed to accompany a heavy spotting scope, as the optic heavily burdens the Y-axis of the tripod.

The carrying bag is nice, but doesn’t include space for a tripod. The objective lens cap is attached and spring-loaded, while the eyepiece cap is fully removable. Both caps are quite good and should provide great protection for your glass.

How Powerful Is This Spotting Scope?

This baby sports a humongous 75mm objective lens, offering you magnification from 25X to 75X. This is terrific for spotting wildlife or sighting in a rifle, and is even a bit over-powered for some purposes, like backyard birdwatching. The quality of the image between 25X and 50X is pretty good, but I noticed quite a bit of haze as I went beyond 50X towards the maximum power of the scope. At higher zoom levels, there’s also a small bit of chromatic aberration.

Eye relief on the glass is 13mm (at maximum magnification) to 16.5mm. Because of this, eyeglass wearers should be wary of this particular model. Gskyer has designed this spotting scope with a field of view of 75 feet (maximum magnification) to 115 feet at 1,000 yards, which is fairly limited, in my experience.

How Easy is the Gskyer 25–75×75 Spotting Scope to Use?

This spotting scope is designed to be easy to use, with a focus ring on the side of the body and the magnification wheel in the eyepiece. Both are ridged and easy to use, but the focus knob is a bit small if you are wearing gloves. It’s certainly usable, but only just. The angled eyepiece is great for avoiding a stiff neck when you’re pointing the scope upwards to spot birds or the night sky, and the tripod mount rotates to give you a variety of choices for how the eyepiece is oriented.

How Effectively Does This Glass Gather Light?

Even though the optics are only fully coated, the large 75mm objective lens allows this spotting scope an outstanding ability to gather light. An integrated sunshade helps protect you from direct sunlight, while lowlight and night viewing opportunities are excellent. I’ve used this spotting scope for backyard astronomy several times, allowing me to view Jupiter and the four Galilean moons easily.

How Good Are the Optics and Focus on This Model?

Strangely enough, this spotting scope utilizes a porro prism configuration, something you don’t see everyday anymore. The prisms appear to be BaK–4 glass, but insufficient phase correction coatings were applied – there’s noticeable phase shift in the glass at higher zoom levels. From 25X to 50X, you’ll get excellent color reproduction, resolution, and contrast, but beyond that you’ll notice haze and a slight tint.

The focus and magnification wheels offer just enough resistance to keep them from moving on their own, but still spin smoothly and allow you to quickly and easily zoom in and clean up your image.

How Good Is the Housing on the Scope?

The chassis of Gskyer’s spotting scope appears to be plastic, based on the light weight of the device, but it’s fully covered in rubber armor. Controls are smartly placed where you’d expect to find them, but it would be nice if the focus knob was a bit wider in diameter. Even so, the scope is a pleasure to use.

How Durable Is It?

With its rubber armor, the spotting scope is rugged and shock resistant. The glass is advertised as being waterproof and fogproof, meaning the lenses are O-ring sealed and the optical chamber is nitrogen-purged. However, some upper seams are loosely fitted together with glue still visible, so I’d be cautious about too much exposure to rain.