$Askar 65PHQ Quintuplet Refracting Astrograph — image 1$

Askar

Askar 65PHQ Quintuplet Refracting Astrograph

A 65mm five-element flat-field astrograph, pinpoint, colour-free stars corner to corner with no separate flattener, in a compact tube built to ride a small tracker.

86/ 100

Polaris Score

#3 of 8 imaging APO refractors

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

65mm

Focal Length

416mm

Focal Ratio

f/6.4

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

Quintuplet Astrograph

Weight

2.8 kg

From$899

Lowest in 90 days

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 7 timesTracking since Aug 2026

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Where to buy

Agena AstroProductsPartnerBest price$899→Starizona$899→High Point Scientific$899→

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What it's built forOpen these in the simulator →

This telescope was built for the camera.

A fast f/6.4 astrograph designed to throw a wide, flat, well-corrected field onto a sensor. It is an optical tube first — give it a tracking mount and a camera and it rewards long exposures, not eyepieces.

f/6.4 — built to imageNeeds a tracking mount

The view people remember

The Dumbbell, an hourglass of gas.

The brightest planetary nebula in the sky — a fat, glowing apple-core shape that takes magnification well and only gets richer with aperture.

See The Dumbbell through this telescope →

Where else it shines

Needs patience

Orion Nebula

Colorful nebula captured with live stacking — wings and filaments

Open view →

Rewards a dark sky

Andromeda Galaxy

Long-exposure capture revealing galaxy core and outer structure

Open view →

Easy first target

The Pleiades

Field rich with stars — long exposure pulls in fainter members

Open view →

Also excellent on

Saturn

Processed planetary capture with rings or bands clearly visible

Open view →

✦

There is no eyepiece experience here. Its reward shows up on a sensor, after the exposure — not in the moment.

01What it's good at

What it's best at — and the trade-offs.

Best at

✓A five-element (quintuplet) design delivers a flat, colour-free field to the corners with nothing extra to add.

✓At f/6.4 it frames large nebulae and galaxy fields cleanly in a compact 65mm tube.

✓The petzval-style flat field means no spacing math and no flattener to buy, it images as delivered.

✓Light and small, it pairs perfectly with a portable star tracker.

Trade-offs

!Only 65mm of aperture, wide and sharp, but not a light bucket.

!OTA only; a tracking mount and camera are extra.

!The built-in corrector is optimised for a set back-focus, match your camera train.

!A reducer for a faster system is a separate purchase.

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

Aperture

65 mm

Small aperture, so faint targets need patient integration rather than a single night. What it does deliver is a wide, evenly corrected field that larger scopes cannot cover, which is the reason people buy a 65 mm astrograph in the first place.

Focal length

416 mm

Wide field. On APS-C it frames the Heart and Soul together, the Veil complex or the whole Rosette without cropping, which suits mosaic-free wide nebula work and large star fields.

Focal ratio

f/6.4

Fast enough that exposures stay short and guiding tolerances stay generous, which makes it a forgiving telescope to learn imaging on. Sub-exposures of a few minutes give usable data even from suburban skies with a filter.

Optical design

Quintuplet flat-field astrograph

Five elements with correction and flattening integrated, so full-frame corners are clean with nothing to add or space. That level of correction in a small tube is what separates it from an ordinary ED doublet plus flattener.

Weight

2.8 kg tube

About 6 lb, light enough for a star tracker or a compact strain-wave mount. It packs into a carry-on with a camera, which makes dark-sky trips genuinely practical.

Mount

OTA only

You supply the mount, but the low weight and short focal length keep that cost down. A small tracking mount with basic guiding is enough to get round stars here.

02The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

86/ 100

Askar 65PHQ Quintuplet Refracting Astrograph

#3 of 8 imaging APO refractors

Performance

Ease of use

Portability

Upgrade potential

Polaris weighs optical capability, how easy the scope is to live with, how portable it is, and how far it takes you before you outgrow it — not list price or brand.

03Who it's for