DopeGuides

We Come From Outer Space

  • How – To
  • Gadget Reviews
  • Home
  • Astronomy Tools
  • Top-Tech

5 Best 80mm Refractor Telescopes for Astrophotography [RANKED]

February 21, 2022 by Maria Chan

astrophotographyYou will agree with me when I say:

 People who do not gaze at the night sky are missing out on the most beautiful aspect of the Universe. 

The refractor telescope is a kind of optical telescope that uses a lens to capture a large amount of light to make a clear, brighter, and a magnified image.

There are also many types of refracting telescopes so choosing the most viable telescope is not an easy task. But, You do not have to worry about anything because we have compiled a list of the 5 80mm best telescope of astrophotography.

Things to consider before buying a refractor telescope:

Look for aperture quality: the lack of light can make some faint details not appear in the image. That is why when creating a telescope, the focus is more on the aperture rather than the magnifying power of a telescope to produce the brightest images so that even the faintest details are not missed.

Look for flaws in the lens: Chromatic aberration is a failure of a lens to focus all colours at the same focal point because as the light passes through a lens, different colours are bent at different angles.

Best 80mm Refractor Telescope for Astrophotography 2022

Here are our top picks for the top 80 mm refractor telescopes for astrophotography.

80mm REFRACTOR TELESCOPESRATINGPRICE
Sky-Watcher EvoStar 80 APO10/10 (Editor's Choice)
Check Price
SoloMark 80EQ refractor scope9.5/10
Check Price
Celestron - PowerSeeker 80EQ refractor scope9/10
Check Price
Orion 52596 Goscope 80mm8.5/10
Check Price
WSHZ 80mm refractor telescope8.5/10
Check Price

1) Sky-Watcher EvoStar 80 APO Doublet Refractor

Skywatcher Evostar 80 APO refractorWhy we love it

  • 10:1 Dual speed focuser
  • Matched Doublet objective
  • Versatile

 

 

 

 

ProsCons
✅Visually minimum chromatic aberration❌ Pretty Expensive
✅ Easy to Focus

Why do we recommend it?

The Sky-Watcher EvoStar 80 is a refracting telescope that consists of a matched-doublet objective lens including one synthetic fluorite element. Fluorite elements allow you to capture high-resolution images of stellar objects with high magnification. The matched-doublet objective including a synthetic fluorite element has a very low secondary spectrum which means that it has minimal chromatic aberration and excellent color correction for both visual and photographic use.

The EvoStar 80 APO is one of the best 80mm refractor for astrophotography because it uses the finest quality glass and Metallic high-transmission coatings which allows you to capture sharp images with greatly accurate colors and minimal chromatic and spherical aberrations. Sky-Watcher Evo Star 80 one of the most versatile astrophotography telescopes because it evolves with its user’s skillset. It is easy to use for beginners and has tonnes of amazing features that make it a good choice as a primary optical tube for an experienced astrophotographer.

Its 10:1 dual-speed focuser makes finding focus as easy as cake regardless of the eyepiece or camera that you are using to capture images making it one of the best astrophotography telescopes. If you want to take your stargazing experience to a whole new level, You can buy additional eyepieces and here is a buying guide for the Top eyepieces for viewing planets.

The EvoStar 80mm refractor telescope comes with everything that an astrophotographer needs i.e a 2″ dielectric diagonal, 5mm and 25mm LET eyepiece, 1.25″ adapter, and a foam-lined aluminium case.

You can get sky-watcher evostar 80 apo doublet refractor on bhphotovideo.com

Check Price on Amazon
Read More
Read Less

Want similar guides for astrophotography? Here’s one we think you’ll like!

2)  SoloMark Telescope 80EQ Refractor Scope

Solomark 80mm refractorWhy we love it

  • Easy-to-use
  • Compact and Lightweight
  • German Equatorial Mount

 

 

 

 

ProsCons
✅ Smooth and easy focusing❌ Does not come with a case
✅Easy to assemble

Why do we recommend it?

80EQ Refractor Scope by SoloMark is the best beginner astrophotography telescope because it combines easy-to-use and quality features. SoloMark 80EQ Refractor Scope is perfect for first-time telescope users because it comes with a German Equatorial Mount. The German Equatorial Mount consists of a slow-motion altitude rod. You can adjust the rod to your desired position and easily keep track of stellar objects through the night sky. If you are new to the concept of astrophotography, try using a laser pointer for locating celestial objects. Here is a buying guide for the best green laser pointer.

The 80EQ telescope is really compact and lightweight when combined with its amazing features, makes it the most suitable portable telescope for astrophotography. You can easily carry it to any dark sky site or even your backyard and just simply start capturing the beautiful night sky. The SoloMark 80mm refractor telescope comes packed with multiple accessories like one 10mm and one 20mm eyepieces, erect image diagonal, a cellphone mount, and a 1.5x Barlow lens easily making it of the best 80mm refractor telescopes. To enjoy the most amazing experience of astrophotography you can check out Best Mounts for Astrophotography.

80EQ Refractor Scope provides you with crystal clear visuals of the moon, Jupiter’s Galilean moons, and the rings around Saturn. You can even look deeper into the sky and explore the amazing visuals of Nebula or Andromeda Galaxy and many more. All of the above-mentioned features make SoloMark 80EQ Refractor Scope one of the finest telescopes for astrophotography.

You can get SoloMark Telescope 80EQ Refractor Scope on ubuy.com.kz

Check Price on Amazon
Read More
Read Less

3) Celestron – PowerSeeker 80EQ Telescope

Celestron Powerseeker 80mm TelescopeWhy we love it

  • 2-year warranty
  • Easy-to-use
  • Easily portable
  • German Equatorial Mount

 

 

 

 

ProsCons
✅ 2-Year warranty❌Tricky to assemble
✅Lightweight

Why do we recommend it?

PowerSeeker 80EQ by Celestron is one of the best beginner astrophotography telescopes because it combines easy-to-use features and quality visuals. It also comes equipped with a Manual German Equatorial Mount so you can easily navigate the telescope through the night sky. You can easily adjust the rod to the desired position and then lock it by tightening the cross knob.

Celestron’s PowerSeeker 80EQ is really lightweight and compact. You can easily carry it to any astrophotography site of your choice or you can simply start capturing from your backyard which makes PowerSeeker 80EQ one of the finest portable telescopes for astrophotography. This telescope comes loaded with many useful accessories for both newbies and astrophotography experts. The accessories include a free top-rated astronomy software program that can help new users to understand the behaviors of astronomical objects.

It comes with multiple accessories like 2 eyepieces of 20mm and 4mm, a finderscope, and an erect image diagonal that provide you with a peaceful and easy experience of observing and capturing astronomical objects. You also get a 2-year warranty and unlimited access to Celestron’s Customer support so you can ask them questions about any kind of issue you are facing regarding the refracting telescope. All of the above-mentioned features easily make PowerSeeker 80EQ one of the best 80mm refractor telescopes.

You can get Celestron – PowerSeeker 80EQ Telescope on telescopesplus.com

Check Price on Amazon
Read More
Read Less

4) Orion 52596 Goscope 80mm Backpack Refractor Telescope

Orion 52596 Goscope 80mm refractorWhy we love it

  • Perfect for on-the-go visuals
  • Adjustable Aluminium Tripod
  • Versatile Telescope

 

 

 

 

ProsCons
✅Comes with adjustable tripod❌Incompatible with Barlow lenses
✅Compact and lightweight

Why do we recommend it?

The Orion 52596 Goscope 80mm Refractor Telescope is one of the most easily portable refracting telescopes. Orion carefully designed a full-fledged refractor telescope with powerful and amazing features but as lightweight and compact to fit in a padded backpack for on the go visuals. This refracting telescope is the perfect choice for you if you love both astrophotography and traveling. You can carry it easily in a backpack during hikes and capture beautiful visuals of the galaxy from the top of a hill making it the best on-the-go telescope for you.

The Goscope 80mm refractor telescope by Orion can be used for both daytime wildlife observation and stargazing and moon observation at night time making it a really versatile optical Telescope for both wildlife photographers and astrophotographers. It comes with an adjustable Aluminum Tripod with a 3-way pan head that allows you to smoothly navigate through the night sky. If you want to buy even better tripods, here is a buying guide for the Best Tripods for Astrophotography.

Goscope 80mm Refractor Telescope comes with a 1.25″ Rack-and-pinion focuser which makes sure that you can easily focus your desired object in no time. It is equipped with an 80mm achromatic lens of a 400mm focal length for sharp and clear images of distant objects. The universe is infinitely expansive and locating an object in the night sky is not easy. This is where Orion’s red dot finder scope comes into play. A finder scope usually has lesser magnification than the actual telescope providing you with a wider field of view to easily locate and zero-in on your targets.

Orion’s Goscope 80mm Telescope consists of a moon filter that dulls the extreme glare while viewing natural satellites. Orion’s MoonMap is a great help for beginning astronomers as it has names and locations of over 260+ features of the moon such as craters and mountains and many more. All of the above-mentioned features make Orion Goscope an 80mm Refractor telescope one of the best astrophotography telescopes.

You can get Orion 52596 Goscope 80mm Backpack Refractor Telescope on telescope.com

Check Price on Amazon
Read More
Read Less

5) WSHZ 80mm Refractor Telescope

WSHZ 80mm refractorWhy we love it

  • Perfect for beginners
  • Great magnification accessories
  • Adjustable Tripod
  • WaterProof

 

 

 

 

ProsCons
✅Good Focal Length❌Unsuitable for professional use
✅Great for beginners

Why do we recommend it?

80mm Refractor Telescope by WSHZ is a perfect choice for beginners to explore astronomy and to start astrophotography. If you want to take crystal clear pictures of the sun and moon, double stars, and planets like Saturn then WSHZ 80mm Refractor Telescope is possibly the most suited refractor telescope for you.

It has an aperture of 80mm and a focal length of 500mm which means that it allows you to take vivid images of stellar objects. This is because the greater the aperture and focal length, the greater the light your objective lens captures and the wider will be your field of vision. The WSHZ 80mm Refractor Telescope comes with two replaceable eyepieces (10x and 20x) and a 3x Barlow lens. The Barlow lens dramatically increases the magnifying power of each eyepiece. Its 5×24 finderscope comes with crosshair lines that make locating and pinpointing your desired object a breeze.

The WSHZ 80mm refractor telescope comes with an adjustable aluminum alloy tripod that allows you to capture astronomical objects from different viewing positions. Both the telescope and tripod can fit in the bag that comes with it for easy storage and traveling. This 80mm astrophotography telescope requires minimal maintenance. It can be easily set up without needing any advanced tools. All of the above0-mentioned features make the WSHZ 80mm refractor telescope one of the top refractor telescopes in the market currently.

You can get WSHZ 80mm Refractor Telescope on alibaba.com

Check Price on Amazon
Read More
Read Less

Conclusion:

The above-mentioned list of the best 80mm refractor telescope for astrophotography has been compiled after conducting extensive research on the finest 80mm refractor telescope’s reviews and factors that need to be considered while opting for a good refracting telescope. This list will definitely help you in finding the top refractor telescope for both your personal or professional use.

Also, check out this video for refracting telescope tutorial:

Refracting telescope - How it works?
Refracting telescopes or the earliest telescopes work by using two convex lenses to gather more light than the human eye could and make any distant object look a lot closer to you than it actually is.

Convex lenses work by taking in parallel light rays and then bending the light inwards so the light is converged at a point. That point of conversion is called the focal point and the distance from the lens to the focal point is called the focal length of a lens. The size of an image created by a refracting telescope depends on the focal length of the lens being used in it. The greater the focal length, the larger the image.

The brightness of the image, on the other hand, depends upon the total amount of light gathered by the lens and the total light gathered by the lens depends upon the diameter of the objective lens. This diameter of the objective lens is also known as aperture and it is 80mm in our case. You can increase the light-gathering power of your lens four times if you double the diameter of your objective lens but that can be very expensive in the case of refractor telescopes.

Now, as for magnifying power, The telescopes have their limitations because of the instability of Earth’s atmosphere and can show blurry and aberrated images. You can magnify a blurred image to look more closely at some objects in it but they will not appear any clearer. Instead, the lack of light can make some faint details not appear in the image. That is why when creating a telescope, we focus more on the aperture rather than the magnifying power of a telescope to produce the brightest images so that even the faintest details are not missed.

However, there are some limitations to Refractor telescopes which are called chromatic aberration and spherical aberration. Chromatic aberration is a failure of a lens to focus all colors at the same focal point because as the light passes through a lens, different colors are bent at different angles. This can lead to the image appearing blurry. Spherical aberration occurs when the outer parts of a lens do not focus the incoming light at the same points causing the image to appear unsharp. This phenomenon occurs when using a lens with great apertures but can be fixed by using a lens with smaller apertures. If you have never worked with a telescope before, here is a complete guide for you to assemble and understand the working of a telescope.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Maria Chan
Maria Chan
Author at Dope Guides
I am a Space enthusiast and have been into deep space research for over 8 years. Inspired by the likes of Mary Robinette Kowal and others to write great content.
Maria Chan
Latest posts by Maria Chan (see all)
  • 10 Best Monocular Telescopes UK in 2022【Reviewed】 - April 1, 2022
  • How To Build A Dobsonian Telescope [Guide 2022] - March 31, 2022
  • Best Astrophotography Stacking Software [Ultimate Guide] - March 31, 2022

Related Posts:

  • 6 Best Cameras for Time Lapse Video 2022【Ranked】
    6 Best Cameras for Time Lapse Video 2022【Ranked】
  • 11 Best Refractor Telescopes for Beginners in 2022 【Reviewed】
    11 Best Refractor Telescopes for Beginners in 2022…
  • 10 Best Telescopes for Astrophotography [Reviewed 2022]
    10 Best Telescopes for Astrophotography [Reviewed 2022]
  • 8 Best Telescopes for Astrophotography UK in 2022 【Reviewed】
    8 Best Telescopes for Astrophotography UK in 2022 【Reviewed】
  • Best Telescope For Deep Space Astrophotography [Guide]
    Best Telescope For Deep Space Astrophotography [Guide]
  • Best Astrophotography Stacking Software [Ultimate Guide]
    Best Astrophotography Stacking Software [Ultimate Guide]

Filed Under: Gadget Reviews

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • What Is a Super Blue Blood Moon?【Everything You Need to Know About this Phenomenon!】
  • What is a Super Blood Wolf Moon?【A Detailed Guide】
  • Monocular vs Binocular in 2022【Comparison】
  • How To Photograph the Moon Like a Pro? 【Beginner Guide 2022】
  • 10 Best Monocular Telescopes UK in 2022【Reviewed】

Don’t Stress

At DopeGuides, you can leave it all to us. Providing you with quality content so you can learn, grow & save money as we go!

Quick Links

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Services

Top Categories:

  • TopTech
  • Quotes
  • Gadget Review
  • Astronomy Tools
  • Guides
  • How-To

Copyright © 2023 · Dope Guides