$Sky-Watcher Evostar 150 APO Refractor — image 1$

Sky-Watcher

Sky-Watcher Evostar 150 APO Refractor

Name: Sky-Watcher Evostar 150 APO Refractor
Brand: Sky-Watcher

No longer sold

A 6-inch ED doublet, about as much refractor aperture as most people will ever mount, delivering bright, high-contrast views of the planets, Moon and doubles that rival far larger reflectors.

87/ 100

Polaris Score

#1 of 6 large ED refractor

See the breakdown ↓

Aperture

150mm

Focal Length

1200mm

Focal Ratio

f/8

Mount Type

None (OTA only)

Optical Design

ED Doublet Refractor

Weight

12 kg

Try in simulator →

No longer sold

Discontinued by the manufacturer (per Agena Astro). We keep the page for reference — see current alternatives below.

See alternatives ↓

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

Andromeda, wider than the Moon.

A vast soft oval with a blazing core — two and a half million light-years of galaxy, spilling well past the field of view under a genuinely dark sky.

See Andromeda Galaxy through this telescope →

Where else it shines

Within reach

Orion Nebula

Stronger structure — embedded stars plus dark lanes within the core

Open view →

Easy first target

The Pleiades

Rich field — fainter members fill out the cluster

Open view →

Rewards a dark sky

Whirlpool Galaxy

Definite galaxy shape — core stands out against the sky

Open view →

Also excellent on

Saturn

Atmospheric bands or polar caps visible depending on the planet

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.

150mm is exceptional refractor aperture, bright enough to split very tight doubles and resolve fine planetary detail

Best at

✓150mm is exceptional refractor aperture, bright enough to split very tight doubles and resolve fine planetary detail

✓The ED glass controls color well for a doublet, keeping views clean on Jupiter, the Moon and bright stars

✓At f/8 the long focal ratio makes color correction easier and lets eyepieces perform at their best

✓It ships with a dual-speed focuser, rings and hardware, so the tube is ready to mount and observe

Trade-offs

!The tube is very long and heavy and demands a large, stable mount to steady it

!As a doublet a trace of color remains on the brightest targets versus a triplet

!f/8 and 1200mm are slow and long for wide-field deep-sky imaging

!It is an OTA only and needs a mount, diagonal and eyepieces to observe

02In plain English

What These Numbers Mean

150mm · f/8 · 1200mm FL

Aperture

150 mm

Six inches of refractor aperture is a lot of glass, gathering about 56 percent more light than a 120 mm. On the Moon, planets and double stars the combination of size and no central obstruction produces views that a much larger reflector struggles to equal.

Focal length

1200 mm

Long. It reaches 240x with a 5 mm eyepiece and frames planets, globular clusters and small galaxies naturally, but the field stays narrow and wide nebulae are not its territory.

Focal ratio

f/8

Slow enough to keep the doublet's colour correction strong at this aperture and to make eyepieces easy to match. For imaging it means long exposures, so most owners buy this one for visual observing.

Optical design

ED doublet apochromat

A large ED doublet trades a little residual colour on the very brightest objects for far lower weight and cost than a six-inch triplet would carry. It also cools faster than a triplet of the same aperture.

Weight

12 kg tube

About 26 lb of long tube. This is a two-hands lift onto a mount and needs a heavy tripod, so realistically it becomes a fixed-location telescope.

Mount

OTA only

You supply the mount, and it must be a serious one. An EQ6-class equatorial or a heavy alt-azimuth is the entry point for steady views at high magnification with a tube this long.

03The Polaris Score

How it scores, and why.

87/100 · #1 of 6 large ED refractor

87/ 100

Sky-Watcher Evostar 150 APO Refractor

#1 of 6 large ED 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