$Apertura 72mm ED Doublet APO Refractor — image 1$

Apertura

Apertura 72mm ED Doublet APO Refractor

A 72mm FPL-53 ED doublet at a fast f/6, clean, wide, colour-controlled fields at a price that undercuts the triplets. A superb value first imaging refractor.

84/ 100

Polaris Score

#6 of 8 imaging APO refractors

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

72mm

Focal Length

430mm

Focal Ratio

f/6

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

ED Doublet Refractor

Weight

2.4 kg

From$649.95

Lowest in 90 days

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 28 timesTracking since Mar 2026

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Where to buy

High Point ScientificBest price$649.95→

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What it's built forOpen these in the simulator →

This telescope was built for sweeping wide.

A short, fast refractor with a generous true field — the whole sword of Orion in one view, star fields that spill past the field stop. It rewards low power and dark skies far more than chasing magnification.

Widest true fieldsTack-sharp to the edge

The view people remember

The Double Cluster, side by side.

Two glittering knots of stars sharing one low-power field — a wide, effortless showpiece that rewards the biggest true field you can throw at it.

See Double Cluster through this telescope →

Where else it shines

Needs patience

Orion Nebula

Bright core visible, outer wisps need patience and dark adaptation

Open view →

Easy first target

The Pleiades

Many cluster members resolved with color contrast between bright stars

Open view →

Rewards a dark sky

Andromeda Galaxy

Faint elongated smudge — averted vision helps

Open view →

Also excellent on

Saturn

Small bright disk — featureless point at low magnification

Open view →

✦

Tight planetary detail belongs to a longer scope. This one trades reach for a breathtaking field.

01What it's good at

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

Best at

✓An FPL-53 ED element controls most false colour for clean, largely colour-free stars.

✓Fast f/6 and a wide 430mm field frame large nebulae and gather light quickly.

✓Light (2.4kg) and compact, an ideal first apo on a modest tracker.

✓Priced below the triplets, leaving budget for the mount and camera that matter.

Trade-offs

!Needs a field flattener for corner-sharp stars on a camera (sold separately).

!A doublet leaves a faint colour trace on the very brightest stars.

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

!72mm is a wide-field aperture, not a light bucket.

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

Aperture

72 mm

Small aperture, chosen on purpose. It shows the Moon, the brighter planets as small sharp discs, and rich wide star fields, and it collects enough light for real deep-sky imaging on long exposures. For visual hunting of faint galaxies, a Dobsonian several times its price will show far more.

Focal length

430 mm

Short and wide. On an APS-C camera this frames the whole Andromeda Galaxy, the North America Nebula or the Pleiades in one shot, which is the classic beginner astrophotography field. Visually it is a low-power rich-field scope rather than a planetary one.

Focal ratio

f/6

Fast enough that deep-sky exposures build signal quickly and short enough that small tracking errors stay hidden. That combination is why a 72 mm f/6 is the standard first imaging telescope. Add the matching flattener to keep stars round in the corners.

Optical design

ED doublet

Two elements, one of them ED glass, which controls the violet fringing that plagues cheap achromats. At f/6 a doublet leaves a trace of colour on the brightest stars where a triplet would not. In exchange it cools fast, holds collimation, and costs a fraction of a triplet.

Weight

2.4 kg tube

Around 5 lb. It fits in a backpack with a camera and rides comfortably on a star tracker, so this is the scope that actually travels to dark skies instead of staying in the garage.

Mount

OTA only

You supply the mount. Its light weight means a star tracker or a small equatorial is enough, which keeps the total cost of an imaging setup unusually low for this class.

02The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

84/ 100

Apertura 72mm ED Doublet APO Refractor

#6 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