Sky-Watcher Esprit 120 ED APO Refractor

Overview

The Sky-Watcher Esprit 120 ED APO Refractor is a premium apochromatic refractor telescope that boasts a 120mm aperture and a focal length of 840mm, resulting in a focal ratio of f/7. This telescope is engineered to deliver stunningly sharp and high-contrast images, making it an ideal choice for astrophotography and visual observations. The Esprit 120 ED APO is equipped with a triplet super-apochromatic design, which virtually eliminates false color and chromatic aberration, ensuring that your images are free from any extraneous color.

Optical Design

At the heart of the Esprit 120 ED APO is its triplet super-apochromatic optical design. This design features three elements, including FPL-53 ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass and Schott BK-7 glass. These high-quality glass materials work together to provide exceptional clarity and color correction. The triplet design ensures that light passing through the telescope is focused precisely, resulting in sharp and detailed images with excellent contrast.

The optics are fully multi-coated with Sky-Watcher’s proprietary Metallic High-Transmission Coatings™ (MHTC)™, which maximize light transmission and minimize reflections. This coating technology enhances the overall performance of the telescope, allowing you to capture faint celestial objects with ease.

Focuser and Field Flattener

The Esprit 120 ED APO is equipped with a 3.4-inch dual-speed rack-and-pinion focuser featuring the Helinear track system. This focuser provides smooth and precise focusing with zero image shift, making it easy to achieve perfect focus for both visual observations and astrophotography. The dual-speed functionality allows for fine adjustments, ensuring that you can achieve the sharpest possible images.

Included with the telescope is a thread-on doublet field flattener. This accessory is essential for astrophotographers, as it ensures a flat field across the entire imaging plane. The field flattener corrects any distortion that may occur at the edges of the field of view, resulting in images that are sharp and clear from edge to edge.

Build Quality and Accessories

The Sky-Watcher Esprit 120 ED APO features a rolled steel optical tube with a white, glossy finish. This durable construction ensures that the telescope can withstand the rigors of regular use and transportation. The optical tube is also equipped with a retractable dew shield, which helps to prevent dew from forming on the lens during observations.

The telescope comes with a comprehensive set of accessories, including tube rings, a D-style dovetail, an 8×50 right-angle finderscope, an M48 camera adapter, a 2-inch dielectric diagonal, and a padded hard case. These accessories provide everything you need to get started with your observations and astrophotography sessions.

Imaging Performance

Designed with astrophotographers in mind, the Esprit 120 ED APO delivers imaging performance that rivals telescopes costing thousands of dollars more. The combination of the triplet super-apochromatic design, high-quality glass materials, and advanced coatings ensures that your images are free from chromatic aberration and other optical distortions. The result is stunningly sharp and high-contrast images that capture the beauty of the night sky in exquisite detail.

The included field flattener further enhances the imaging performance by providing a flat field across the entire imaging plane. This is particularly important for astrophotographers, as it ensures that stars and other celestial objects are sharp and clear from the center to the edges of the image.

Visual Observations

While the Esprit 120 ED APO is designed with astrophotography in mind, it also excels in visual observations. The high-quality optics and precise focusing system make it easy to observe planets, stars, nebulae, and other celestial objects with exceptional clarity and detail. The large 120mm aperture provides a significant light-gathering capacity, allowing you to see faint objects that would be difficult to observe with smaller telescopes.