Explore Scientific ED127 Essential Series Air-Spaced Apochromatic Triplet Refractor Telescope for Astrophotography Astronomy

Great optics.For the size and quality of optics it can't be beat.I came from a AR 127 achromat and this is far superior. Jupiter through the AR 127 with an 11mm Explore Scientific 85 degree AFOV eyepiece @ 75x showed a good deal of purple fringing around the edges of Jupiter. (which is high in the sky now) Through the ED 127 same eyepiece @ 87x showed no color fringing at all. This was all the seeing would support. Very nice. Jupiter had a moon peeking out the west side, watched it emerge, nice contrast for the seeing.On bright stars again, no color fringing.I will report again after more use.I give it 5 stars for a 5 inch ED APO telescope.

Arrived on time and I was super excited until I looked into the aperture. It was full of dust and seemed to be missing screws. It looked as though someone tried to remove the front aperture I'm guessing to clean it which I don't even think is possible as it would screw up the lens alignment if they did. Very disappointed as I know this is a great scope despite my review. Returned to Amazon with no problem.

A good scope for the money, but Explore Scientific does not provide any customer service. I wanted to use the scope for astrophotography with their .6 focal reducer/flattener. But how close or far back does it reach focus with this combo? The so called manual is a 'how to handle the scope properly" type. They only have one phone # for the whole operation. I called and got a message "this voice box is full and you can not leave a message". Apparently they think of themselves as a distributor of this Chinese made product, not as a company that supports it. Wish I had of brought a different scope!

I upgraded to this scope from a 8" SCT and the quality of my pictures are much better. It's such a high quality scope and I'm very proud of it. I am enjoying every moment of this scope and I would highly recommend grabbing the Baader standard finder dovetail along with a Astromania 60mm finder scope if you plan on doing auto-guided astro photography. I cannot stress to you enough the Baader connector with the Astromania setup, I will post the links below. I tried my best to get my 80mm Orion refractor connected to the handles of the Ed127 to workout with my auto guider but I lost literally 2 days of my life trying to get this to work and could not get everything to sync after hours of setup. I had really bad auto guiding results. The one variable that delivered perfectly during every attempt has been the Ed127, you cannot go wrong. Visuals are fantastic, but the Astro-photography aspect of this scope is where it truly delivers!Let me know if you need any additional info, I would be happy to elaborate relative to my [email protected]://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QHWK0SM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1https://www.amazon.com/Astromania-Compact-Guidescope-Helical-Focuser/dp/B015VUPS2I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499578006&sr=8-1&keywords=60mm+finder+scope

Excellent scope! Built very well! I've had it out 4 times (bad and cold weather keeping me in) and used it both visually and planet astrophotography. Visually the stars are points, and as I jacked up the magnification (50x/inch) and the stars were still points and clear.... As for my limited astrophotography of Jupiter, it turned out clear with very good color!I was nervous about spending this kind of money for a APO (I'm a SCT guy, 8" & 11"), but the write-ups about contrast and clarity are correct! The SCT has the advantage of larger target in EP, and light grasp.I highly recommend for anybody.Note: this scope is heavy and long, I found out the diagonal will hit my CG-5 tripod leg when slewing need zenith. I do not have this issue with my CGEM mount, plenty of clearance....

I've had a few scopes Refractors (achromatic) Schmits Newts and Moks but none as clear as this. Great buy recommend highly.