Best wide field refractor under 2500$ - Forums

Topic starter

Dec 27, 2021

Merry Christmas to all of you :-)

A question that a lot us have given a thought once in a while; What is the best apo refractor you can buy for a reasonable ammount of money, lets say under 2500$? In this case I want a fast one that cowers a wide field like for example the Sharpstar 94EDPH.

I bought the RedCat 71 just before christmas, but I am not that impressed as the stars shows some elongation at the edges of 19x13 mm at perfect focus. And as this is a four lens petzwahl there is no way to fix this by adjusting back focus.

I live en Denmark, so I am limited to the European Market because of duty, taxes etc.

Clear skies
Steen

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Mike Dobres

Dec 27, 2021

I m looking for same - saw this discussion. https://www.astrobin.com/forum/c/astrophotography/equipment/explore-scientific-127-mm-apo-fcd-100/

Stjepan Prugovečki

Dec 27, 2021

Depends a bit what can your mount handle . Skywatcher Esprit 80 or 100 are reasonable value for money (100 could be slightly above $2500)

Steen Knarberg

Topic starter

Dec 27, 2021

I have thought of these scopes, could be favorites, though not as wide as I'd like.

My mount is a CEM70-G, so that's not a limitation.

Stjepan Prugovečki

Dec 27, 2021

Well , there are focal reducers available (like Starizona , or Ricardi , or TS ). Unfortunately that pulls Esprit 100 out of your budget , and is perhaps not really suitable for full frame camera (should be OKish with APS-C though). I have Esprit 120 with TS 0.79 reducer and it does the job with 2600 cameras, but ,of course , different reducer is required for 100 or 80.

matthew.maclean

Dec 27, 2021

I see you are already using a TS Optics RC - are none of their small refractors sufficient? They have several small triplet models and also a few corrected Petzval-types to choose from. Omegon also sells several small triplets and quads. I cannot speak to the exact quality of any of these, but they seem like they fit what you are looking for.

Alternatively, Askar (Sharpstar) has an FRA400 that is fairly new and I see Astrobin users posting images with it sometimes. Borg has a number of small refractors with wide focal ratios that are interesting.

I have been helping Salvatore modernize Astrobin's equipment database, so I happen to have a good list of the small telescopes with links to their product websites. I extracted the ones with small focal length from our TS-Optics and Omegon lists and copied them into a CSV here if it is useful to explore them (the links were too large to paste into the message box). Perhaps Teleskop-Service could tell you which of their models have better star quality compared to the others?

TSOptics_Omegon_Askar.csv

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Morian

Dec 27, 2021

Hej Steen.
Jeg har Skywatcher Esprit 80 og det origi flattner og det spiller bare syntes jeg.
Her er et eks. https://www.astrobin.com/i31gjc/
Mvh.
Morten

Steen Knarberg

Topic starter

Dec 27, 2021

Stjepan, thanks for your suggestions. The budget doesn't scare me and the Esprit 100 with flattener is wide enough I think :-) Worth considdering!

Matthew, also I'm very gratefull for your work and input on this. I have been studying the various TS options. I am a bit concerned about the quality though and want to get it right this time, if possible ;-)

Og Morten, også tak for dit input :-) Fint billede du linker til, kan virelig godt lidt behandlingen. De spikes man ser på de klare stjerner, har du nogen ide om hvor de kommer fra, for de ses ikke på billeder fra hverken Esprit 100 og 120?

M_Johnson

Dec 27, 2021

I have been seriously looking as well. I have a Redcat 51 and am really pleased with it but would like something a bit bigger. I have somewhat narrowed it down between an Esprit 100 or the William Optics Fluorostar 91….leaning towards the latter. The Esprit seems to be bullet proof (almost) but the Fluorostar has had some reports of poor focuser construction. It seems they need a little mechanical tweaking out of the box but nothing too serious that an hour or so with a hex driver won't fix. The Esprit comes with a very good (from all reports) field flattener but the WO Fluorostar does not include one. Their field flattener/reducer has had a few reports of star elongation in the corners. I have my eye on the Hotech SCA flattener which does not have the reducer built in. That way you can make use of the full focal length of the telescope.

At any rate, I have not completely decided yet….

Good luck

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Michele Vonci

Dec 27, 2021 · Edited: Dec 27, 2021

The William Optics GT-81 it's an apochromatic triplet (81mm diameter , f/5.9) and it has a 478mm focal length that becomes 382mm with the dedicated 0.8x reducer/flattener. I think it's below 1500$ including the reducer

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Christian Koll

Dec 27, 2021 · Edited: Dec 27, 2021

I own an Esprit 100 and use ist with a full frame camera.

I can highly recommend this telescope, just make sure to have it collimated and checked by a specialist. This means, don‘t just buy off the shelf and you‘ll be very happy with this lens.

The Esprit is even up to the QHY600 at 61MP, have a look at my photos!

CS
Chris

AstroDivers

Dec 27, 2021

TeleskopService has most of its models below that price range
Prices are rising. If I had to buy a 'budget' refractor I'd look either in TS or the Esprit lineup. I have a 130 TS
They do the job pretty well. I would consider your location to establish which supplier is the best choice.
Probably, if you are outside Europe, Skywatcher should be less difficult to deal with in case of guarantee

Morian

Dec 27, 2021

Hej Igen.
Jeg bruger Star Spikes Pro 4 som er et plug-in til Photoshop, der kan shine dem lidt op…..

Mark L Mitchell

Dec 27, 2021

Steen Knarberg:
Merry Christmas to all of you :-)

A question that a lot us have given a thought once in a while; What is the best apo refractor you can buy for a reasonable ammount of money, lets say under 2500$? In this case I want a fast one that cowers a wide field like for example the Sharpstar 94EDPH.

I bought the RedCat 71 just before christmas, but I am not that impressed as the stars shows some elongation at the edges of 19x13 mm at perfect focus. And as this is a four lens petzwahl there is no way to fix this by adjusting back focus.

I live en Denmark, so I am limited to the European Market because of duty, taxes etc.

Clear skies
Steen

I don't know what the best one is, but I have a Stellarvue SV70T that I've been very happy with. I think it has been replaced by the SV80XT and it is about $5 less than $2500. I just posted an image of B33 that I took with it. The T models include a heavier focuser and a matching field flattener. These are apo triplets and mine has been mechanically solid and, using the field flattener, optically excellent. There are images at the user's group, "Simply Stellarvue" at Astrobin.

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