Home

ScopeViews’ Reference Standards

The following are the pick of the crop, as far as I am concerned: the best that I’ve tested in their specific category.

Obviously, treat this as opinion, but I have used a lot of optical gear over the years, so I hope it’s a valid starting point in the choosing process.

Best General-purpose Binoculars

Zeiss 7x42 Victory FL – The view through these is stunning: comfortable, wide, sharp and virtually free of chromatic aberration with huge depth of field. Great for terrestrial use; astro’ use too, but only if you have reasonably dark skies and obviously not for small DSOs.

A big plus for astronomy is that their composite body is much warmer to hold than metal on frosty nights. Only downside is some field curvature at the edge. If you’re sceptical about 7x binos, try a pair of these.

If you want one pair of general purpose binoculars with a higher power (for example if your skies are light-polluted, or if you like hunting Messier objects), but that you can use for birding or nature viewing as well, the Swarovski EL 12x50s (see below) make a remarkably good case for themselves. I would expect the EL 10x50s to be even better in a general purpose role.

Best Hand-held Astronomy Binoculars

Swarovski 12x50 EL – These are bright, pin-sharp and have a wide flat field. What’s more they have decent eye relief for specs’ wearers like me. Despite their high power, the wide bright field means they are easy to handle for casual terrestrial use and birding, as well as giving impressive views for astronomy. 

If you find the asking price for the 12x50ELs a bit steep, then Nikon’s 12x50 SE – my former reference standard – are still a great choice. They may not be as perfect as the Swarovskis (they have some blackout issues with the eyepieces and are not waterproof), but they are light weight, flat of field, superbly sharp and bright and very finely manufactured. Oh, and the Nikons are currently a third the price of the Swarovskis.

If you can manage the weight and bulk and high-magnification, combined with scant eye relief and a bit too much chromatic aberration, Swarovski’s 15x56 SLCs will show you more than just about any other hand-holdable astronomy binocular. The new version (from late 2013) has HD optics, more eye relief and is brighter due to Abbe type prims. It should be excellent.

Best Small Refractor

Takahashi TSA-102 or TMB 100/8 (now very expensive) – Both these scopes come close to optical perfection: pin sharp; high contrast; zero visual CA. But they cool more slowly and are heavier than a doublet.

For visual use, the Takahashi’s FS and Vixen’s FL series come remarkably close, though, and may even beat the triplets for contrast (and certainly for cool-down time).

If you want a small scope that does wide field imaging natively, without adding a reducer or flattener, but is still good for high powers on Solar System objects, then TeleVue’s NP101 is another great choice. The NP101 has optics almost as perfect as the TSA or TMB, but it has a very fast focal ratio and a natively flat field for astro-photography, a quick cooldown and is good for everything from surfing star fields to high powers on planets and even terrestrial nature photography.

Best Larger Refractor

I’m going to stick my neck out and make an unusual choice here. The best large refractor I have ever tested is the TMB 175, but it is so expensive new and rare used that it would be a bit silly to recommend it here. I would expect the more available TMB 152 to be similar, but haven’t tested it so can’t recommend it. Either suffers from the need for a big mount.

So … my favourite sensibly priced large refractor remains the Takahashi FS-128! Unfortunately, the FS-128 hasn’t been available new for years, but they do still come up used.

A bit bulky for its aperture, but with the doublet virtues of light weight and quick cool-down, the FS-128 still has minimal chromatic aberration and gives razor-sharp views of every type of object and with enough aperture for involving views of the Moon and planets. I loved mine and should never have sold it.

Best budget refractor

This is easy. The Sky-Watcher 100ED Pro has excellent optics with minimal CA and a smooth dual-speed focuser. It is a proper 4” APO, so shows a lot more than smaller APOs. Yet it’s available for a very modest price, much less than the 120ED.

Best Reflector

Orion Optics 8” F8 Newtonian with 1/10^TH PV – This Super-Newtonian has superlative optical quality and a small central obstruction, so that it rivals the finest refractors for performance on planets (but not for ease of use and versatility, unfortunately).

Best Small-Medium Mount

Takahashi EM200 – The EM200 is beautifully made and has the best polar scope out there. It will easily manage five minute unguided exposures and has tracking accuracy up there with the very best. It’s expensive, though, and still uses ferrous metals, so it could rust in a damp observatory.

Best Large Mount

Astro-Physics AP1200. The AP1200 is the finest piece of engineering I’ve encountered in Astro World, with superb design and a kind of ‘boutique’ manufacturing from the finest materials and components. For a big mount it isn’t even expensive. The AP1200 has been replaced by the AP1600, but I would expect it to very similar in terms of quality and performance.

Best Eyepiece

Tele Vue Ethos – Controversial perhaps, but the Ethos is a game changer that blows other wide-field designs away in almost every respect. Not only is the field super-wide, but the Ethos is extremely bright and sharp (I use it for planets) to the very edge, very comfortable to use (minimal blackouts) and is relatively light weight. Mainly though, it’s just something in the aesthetics of the view. Before I tried one I was deeply sceptical, but now I think Ethos is just superb.