$Askar SQA55 Quintuplet Refractor — image 1$

Askar

Askar SQA55 Quintuplet Refractor

A 55mm f/4.8 quintuplet astrograph the size of a camera lens, a flat, fast, pinpoint wide field that rides a tiny star tracker. The most portable serious imaging rig you can buy.

86/ 100

Polaris Score

#1 of 6 compact astrographs

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

55mm

Focal Length

264mm

Focal Ratio

f/4.8

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

Quintuplet Astrograph

Weight

1.6 kg

From$795

Lowest in 90 days

Price tracked by PolarisObserved 7 timesTracking since Aug 2026

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Where to buy

Agena AstroProductsPartnerBest price$795→Starizona$795→High Point Scientific$795→

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What it's built forOpen these in the simulator →

This telescope was built for the camera.

A fast f/4.8 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/4.8 — built to imageNeeds a tracking mount

The view people remember

M57, a perfect smoke ring.

A tiny, flawless grey ring floating in a rich star field — the blown-off shell of a dying star, and one of the most satisfying small targets in the sky.

See Ring Nebula 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 delivers a flat, colour-free field to the corners with no separate flattener needed.

✓At f/4.8 and 1.6kg it images fast and rides the smallest star trackers, a true travel astrograph.

✓Short 264mm focal length frames the largest nebulae, the Milky Way and wide constellations whole.

✓Built-in tilt adjustment and a proper imaging spec make it punch far above its size.

Trade-offs

!Only 55mm of aperture, this is a wide-field tool, not a light bucket for faint detail.

!OTA only; it still needs a tracker or mount and a camera.

!The short focal length makes small objects tiny in frame.

!Best matched to APS-C / small sensors; very large sensors may outrun the corrected circle.

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

Aperture

55 mm

Barely two inches of glass, so this is not a telescope for faint or small targets. It exists to cover extremely wide fields cleanly, and it needs long total integration to reach dim nebulosity.

Focal length

264 mm

Very wide. It frames whole constellations' worth of nebulosity: the Orion complex end to end, the Cygnus loop, or the Rho Ophiuchi region in a single frame. This is closer to a fast camera lens than a conventional telescope.

Focal ratio

f/4.8

Fast and forgiving. Short exposures build usable signal, and at 264 mm even mediocre tracking produces round stars, which makes it the easiest possible entry into deep-sky imaging.

Optical design

Quintuplet Petzval astrograph

Five elements with built-in flattening give clean full-frame corners at a very wide field, where lesser designs show elongated edge stars. No flattener, no spacers, no arithmetic.

Weight

1.6 kg tube

Around 3.5 lb. Any star tracker carries it, it fits in a camera bag, and it is realistic to take on a plane, which is what makes it a dark-sky travel scope.

Mount

OTA only

You supply the mount, and almost anything that tracks will do. This is the cheapest complete imaging setup in the Askar line once the mount is counted.

02The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

86/ 100

Askar SQA55 Quintuplet Refractor

#1 of 6 compact astrographs

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