$Askar SQA70 Quintuplet Refractor — image 1$

Askar

Askar SQA70 Quintuplet Refractor

Name: Askar SQA70 Quintuplet Refractor
Brand: Askar

A fast 70mm f/4.9 flat-field quintuplet, a portable wide-field astrograph that delivers sharp full-frame corners and short exposures in a light, travel-ready tube.

87/ 100

Polaris Score

#3 of 8 wide-field imaging refractor

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

70mm

Focal Length

343mm

Focal Ratio

f/4.9

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

Quintuplet Astrograph

Weight

2.7 kg

From$1,595

Lowest in 90 days

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 55 timesTracking since Aug 2026

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Where to buy

Agena AstroProductsPartnerBest price$1,595→Starizona$1,595→High Point Scientific$1,595→

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What it's built forOpen these in the simulator →

This telescope was built for the camera.

A fast f/4.9 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/4.9 — built to imageNeeds a tracking mount

The view people remember

The Whirlpool, and its companion.

A face-on spiral with a smaller galaxy caught at the end of one arm — on a dark night the spiral structure lifts off the sky in a way photographs almost prepare you for.

See Whirlpool Galaxy 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.

The five-element design bakes the flattener into the tube, so stars stay pinpoint to full-frame corners

Best at

✓The five-element design bakes the flattener into the tube, so stars stay pinpoint to full-frame corners

✓At f/4.9 it collects light fast, cutting exposure times and revealing faint nebulosity quickly

✓343mm frames large nebulae and the Milky Way with room to spare

✓At 2.7kg it rides comfortably on lightweight star trackers

Trade-offs

!It is a dedicated astrograph with a narrow visual use case

!343mm is short, so small targets stay small in the frame

!As an OTA it needs a tracking mount, camera and often a guide scope

!Fast optics reward careful spacing and tilt control

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

70mm · f/4.9 · 343mm FL

Aperture

70 mm

Just under three inches. Enough to pull real detail out of the brighter nebulae and galaxies with a few hours of integration, while staying small enough to remain a genuinely portable imaging rig.

Focal length

343 mm

Wide field. The Veil, the Heart and Soul, the Pleiades and the Andromeda Galaxy all sit comfortably in a single APS-C frame, which is the target list most wide-field imagers work through first.

Focal ratio

f/4.9

Fast, so exposures stay short and total integration times stay reasonable even under suburban skies with a dual-band filter. Short focal length plus fast optics is the most forgiving combination for guiding.

Optical design

Quintuplet Petzval astrograph

Five elements with the flattener designed in, giving clean stars into the corners of a full-frame sensor. Nothing to space, nothing to add, which removes the most common cause of elongated corner stars.

Weight

2.7 kg tube

About 6 lb, comfortably within star tracker limits with a small camera attached. It travels in a backpack, so dark-sky sessions stay easy to commit to.

Mount

OTA only

No mount included, but the requirement is light. A tracker or entry equatorial with rough guiding is enough for round stars at this focal length.

03The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

87/100 · #3 of 8 wide-field imaging refractor

87/ 100

Askar SQA70 Quintuplet Refractor

#3 of 8 wide-field imaging refractor

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.

04Who it's for