$Askar FRA400C Quintuplet APO Refractor — image 1$

Askar

Askar FRA400C Quintuplet APO Refractor

A 72mm f/5.6 five-element flat-field astrograph, pinpoint stars corner to corner with no separate flattener to buy, source or space out. A wide, fast, ready-to-image refractor in one box.

87/ 100

Polaris Score

#2 of 8 imaging APO refractors

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

72mm

Focal Length

400mm

Focal Ratio

f/5.6

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

Quintuplet Astrograph

Weight

2.5 kg

From$895

Lowest in 90 days

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 51 timesTracking since Jul 2026

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Where to buy

Agena AstroProductsPartnerBest price$895→High Point Scientific$895→

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What it's built forOpen these in the simulator →

This telescope was built for the camera.

A fast f/5.6 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/5.6 — 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.

Best at

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

✓Fast f/5.6 and a wide 400mm field make short work of large nebulae and star fields.

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

✓Compact and 2.5kg, it pairs with small trackers and travels easily.

Trade-offs

!Only 72mm of aperture, wide and fast, 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 dedicated reducer is a separate purchase if you want to go faster still.

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

Aperture

72 mm

Modest light grasp, chosen for field width rather than reach. Faint targets need stacked hours rather than single frames, but wide nebulae and star fields come out clean and evenly lit.

Focal length

400 mm

Genuinely wide. The Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiades, the North America Nebula and the Veil all frame comfortably on APS-C, which covers most of the popular first-year target list in one telescope.

Focal ratio

f/5.6

Fast. Signal builds quickly, sub-exposures stay short, and small tracking errors are hidden by the short focal length. This is the combination that makes wide-field imaging forgiving for beginners.

Optical design

Quintuplet Petzval astrograph

Five elements including a built-in flattener, so the corners of a full-frame sensor stay clean with no accessory to buy or space. Petzval designs like this need no back-focus arithmetic, which removes a common source of frustration.

Weight

2.5 kg tube

Around 5.5 lb. It rides a star tracker, fits in hand luggage, and turns a dark-sky weekend into a realistic plan rather than an expedition.

Mount

OTA only

No mount included, but almost any tracking mount will do. That keeps the entry cost of a complete imaging setup unusually low for this level of optical correction.

02The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

87/ 100

Askar FRA400C Quintuplet APO Refractor

#2 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