The Equinox 80 is an excellent choice for Astronomy birding, nature study, and photography. Its fast, high-contrast optics and generous field of view make it an ideal instrument for studying larger clusters and star fields, and it is a proven performer for astrophotography you can even use it with a common SCT focal reducer to achieve speeds down to f/4.5! But don’t be afraid to push up the magnification, too. Its crisp optics make it a strong performer on tight double stars, and it provides crisp, clear lunar and planetary images with no image breakdown, even at high powers.
Schott Glass Used for Crown Element
Equinox 80 benefit from the inclusion of Schott glass being used for the positive front Crown element in the objective. Schott is the recognized world leader in glass utilized for precision optical lens systems, including medical instrumentation, and famous-brand camera lenses. While Schott glass is only used in selected models, all other models utilize top-quality, Grade-A glass from perhaps less famous but, nonetheless, highly respected, high-quality glass manufacturers
Metallic High-Transmission Lens Coatings
Each air-to-glass lens surface has exotic anti-reflection metallic coatings applied to ensure optimum light through-put of approaching 99.5%. The proprietary Sky-Watcher Metallic High-Transmission Coatings (MHC) are the finest photon anti-rejection coatings in their class. We have published an article explaining the merits of this design, read about
ED Doublet refractors.
