Review on 🐦 Celestron Hummingbird ED Micro Spotting Scope 9-27x56mm - Birder-Friendly Design with Close Focus Distance by Cesar Carter

I bought this scope for a service inspection or shot through the scope with my cell phone during a trip to Alaska. I haven't been to Alaska yet, but I've been training in my backyard. I wanted to see how close I can pick up animals that are too far away, but we may be far enough away that we might see bears or whales on our trip. In the attached photos I'm comparing an image that was fully zoomed out on my iPhone XR, zoomed fully in to the digital zoom range where you can see how much resolution is lost, and then a zoomed out image but with a Celestron Hummingbird as the digital one Sight. And a series of photos that I'm enlarging show a nearby aluminum paneling wall about 180 feet from me. In another image, I zoom in on a rusting satellite dish on top of a building a block from where I live in Brooklyn. You can see that I can get incredible detail and much higher resolution using a digital oscilloscope and photographing with my Hummingbird adapter phone. The adapter I used was the Gosky Smartphone Digiscoping Adapter sold on Amazon. It should be noted that I also used a tripod as without it it is impossible to find and focus on the image. I also used the little Bluetooth shutter button I got from Revain for about $7 and synced it to my phone via Bluetooth so I didn't have to shake my phone while I was tapping the screen to take a picture. So this is good news. High-quality images of distant objects are possible. However, I will say that some color blooms with the scope. It has a fancy name if you're into optics. It seems to diminish if you use the ED version of the same Hummingbird oscilloscope, apparently ED stands for the fancy and expensive lens coding they offer as an option, but that was $150 more. I thought I could handle it. The hardest aspect of this is that it's difficult to find anything through the range. The scope angle is good for holding a phone and using the phone as a screen, but if you're trying to zoom in and focus on a bear, for example, I don't think I can do that with my screen. I have to see with my eyes, find the object and concentrate. Then I had to connect the phone to the scope. Then you have to zoom in a bit, otherwise the picture will be a circle with black edges like all spotting scopes, but with a little zoom you get a full screen picture. Then the focus had to be tweaked a bit. Every time you touch your phone or scope while it's on a tripod, you'll knock the picture out of the frame and have to realign it. So in the end I'm not sure it will be practical unless the bear is extremely accommodating and stands perfectly still while I'm bored for a minute or so. This is definitely not the case with birds. I'm not sure if this works for whales. Since one popped out to the right when I fixed the scope where it was and tried to focus, it would have ended up somewhere else. I really wish there was a way to zoom in with my iPhone. I don't want to buy a fancy camera and a fancy zoom lens and learn how to use them just for traveling. So I bring the installation with me. It's fairly light and portable, although I definitely won't be taking it on a hike once you've added a tripod. but if I'm observing wildlife, for example from our expedition ship or from a fixed position in a hunting lodge, it can work.