Tele Vue Ranger Scopes
Personally Reviewed

Tele Vue Ranger ED 70mm
60x resolution score: 18

The Tele Vue Ranger is a small astronomical telescope designed for birders. The scope's astronomical heritage shows in the way the whole eyepiece assembly slides out for a large range of focusing. You fine focus with a cylindrical focus ring.

This kind of telescope lets you use a huge variety of eyepieces and really build your own system. For example, you can use a straight-through eyepiece, a 45° angled eyepiece, or a 90° angled eyepiece. When we tested the Tele Vue Ranger with a 90° diagonal, the scope earned one of the highest resolution scores of any scope we tested. It made a bright, beautiful (though reversed) image, even in dim light.

The Tele Vue Qwik-Point, at top left of the barrel, provides quick and accurate sighting. You switch on a battery-powered red dot in the sight and superimpose the dot on your target. A long mounting bracket for the tripod lets you slide the scope back and forth, varying the balance point.

The Ranger is not weather sealed like scopes that focus internally and have all their elements isolated from the environment. But if you want outstanding optical quality and great flexibility at moderate price, take a look at the Tele Vue Ranger.

The Scopes at a Glance - A Chart
Here we tabulate the essential specs on all the scopes we tested and their closely-related models.