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Is Skywatcher AC 80/400 any good for totally amateur astrophoto?

Sky-Watcher Skymax 127 Equipment Refractors Beginner Buying Advice
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Doda avatar
Doda avatar
Hello everyone,
I am new on this site and I am also new in astrophotography. I have Skywatcher Skymax 127 telescope and I am very pleased with it, but now I would like to try myself in astrophoto. I already have Nikon D3200 DSLR and now I would like some light weight small scope with large field of view for easy grab and go night sky shooting. Since I do not have enough money for some APO or similar I come across this very inexpensive little scope Skywatcher AC 80/400 (there are also Orion short tube AC 80/400). As I already have Skywatcher I have seen that they make good optics, but is this AC 80/400 any good for beginner amateur astrophotography? If not, what would you suggest in that range of price?
Thank you.
AC1000 avatar
AC1000 avatar
Hello,

I use the Skywatcher  80/400 only for guiding, a test shot on M 57 with this telescope shows significant colour aberrations,
please look here:

http://www.astrobin.com/full/164968/0/

Hope I could help a bit.
Cs Harald
Victor Van Puyenbroeck avatar
Victor Van Puyenbroeck avatar
I've used the Orion ShortTube 80/400 during my first year of astroimaging.
Like AC1000 said, this doublet lacks good color correction so blue light will be out of focus most of the time.
The stars at the edge of the frame will also be severely elongated due to field curvature, but this happens on all fast refractors (even APOs) and can be corrected with a field flattener or reducer. I didn't bother buying a flattener, since this would cost more than the scope itself.

However, the fast focal ratio is great for unguided exposures, even with my entry level mount.
Here's a couple examples:







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bobzeq25 avatar
bobzeq25 avatar
It's a great way to start out, and learn the art of astrophotography.  Your images won't be the absolute best, but they wouldn't be anyway.  Once you reach your personal limits with this scope (maybe a year?), you can decide where you want to go from there.
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Doda avatar
Doda avatar
Thank you all guys on your advise, I thing I'm gonna try it, it is worth of that money, at least I'm gonna learn something smile