Log Astronomy: Explore the wonders of wide-field astrophotography!

Save now when you bundle the 0.8x Focal Reducer with an ED80 Triplet Refractor!

Gear up to go big!

Astrophotographers Donna and Donnie Houston captured this image of the Cygnus Loop using the 80mm FCD100 Series Air-Spaced Triplet Refractor with the NEW 0.8x Focal Reducer.

Pair the 0.8x Focal Reducer with an ED80 Refractor to add a wide-field twist to a time-tested telescope design

The Explore Scientific 0.8x Focal Reducer is designed to aid astrophotographers in exploring the wonders of wide-field astrophotography.

The 2-element 0.8x focal reducer turns our Essential Series and FCD100 Series 80mm Refractors, which have a focal length of 480 mm, into devices with a focal length of 384 mm. The reducer changes the telescopes from an f/ratio of f/6 to a much faster f/4.8.

Compared to smaller diameter wide-field telescopes, the Explore Scientific Essential Series and FCD100 80mm telescopes offer significantly more light-gathering aperture. The ES and FCD100 telescopes gather:

1.3 times more light than a 70 mm telescope
1.8 times more light than a 60 mm telescope
A whopping 2.6 times more light than a 50 mm telescope

The faster f/ratio, coupled with more light-gathering aperture, allows more light to fall onto the camera sensor. For instance, to capture the same amount of light as a 100-second exposure with the Explore Scientific 80 mm takes 256 seconds on a 50 mm, 178 seconds on a 60 mm, and 131 sec on 70 mm – assuming the same f/ratio. This means that the Explore Scientific 80mm telescope with the 0.8x Focal Reducer can capture far more detail faster than the competition.

The focal reducer, which has 55 mm (+/- 2 mm) of back spacing, is threaded to accept a standard 42 mm T-ring, making attaching a camera easy.

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