Astro Essentials 0.5x 1.25'' Focal Reducer
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Astro Essentials 0.5x 1.25" Focal Reducer

£19.00
  (5 Reviews)
✓ 2 year warranty

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13x in stock shipped 1-2 working days
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About this product

Model:  ae_0.5x_focal_reducer

This useful 0.5x focal reducer can be used with a wide range of modern CCD cameras and eyepieces. 

The doublet optical system features fully multicoated glass elements for enhanced contrast. 

The 1.25" filter-thread screws into regular 1.25" eyepieces, cameras and other photographic accessories to achieve a 40% increase in field of view. 

Effectively reduces the focal telescope's length by 50%. 

NOTE 1: The exact focal reduction varies slightly depending on the position of the Focal Reducer relative to the eyepiece' optics or, when imaging, to the camera's imaging sensor. 

NOTE 2: Not recommended for short focal ratio systems. 

 

Customer reviews

Average Rating (5 Reviews):  
Write a Review and share your opinions!
Rating (max 5):  
Astro Essentials 0.5x1.25 Focal Reducer
Wednesday, 21 September 2022  | 

This item fitted easily and positively to my Mak 102 with 32mm eyepiece. However on immediate viewing it showed only very minimal increase in field. I tried it with higher powered eyepieces and found only slight improvement.
i then fitted the reducer to my sw Newt 130 ps and found, in comparison, significant increase in field. However, this was still nowhere near the claimed 0.5 reduction in focal length, with commensurate increase in field..
i was hoping to make my Mak more flexible and able to deal better with star clusters and DSO. i am very disappointed. I was told later that focal reducers are not suitable for Maks owing to their long focal lengths (f10 and higher)!

Response:

A 32mm eyepiece is already going to be close to the limit of what a 127 Maksutov can illuminate due to the focuser diameter and other retrictions in the light path. If you tried this on something like a 20mm eyepiece or, a camera then you would see the reduction in focal length expected.

Rating (max 5):  
Astro Essentials 0.5x 1.25" Focal Reducer
Monday, 11 April 2022  | 

Does what it says!

Rating (max 5):  
Great product - with practical limitations
Saturday, 20 February 2021  | 

I got this reducer for my 127MAK Scope. FLO service was second to none, as always. I got my shipment (international) in just 2 days.

Now for the product - Below will be relevant for anyone owning a 127 or so MAK (or anything close)

Lightweight, Well built and it does work well as a reducer - with limitations.

Using this with an astro camera. It more than doubled the field of view of my MAK and reduced the exposure times by a huge amount. I now almost have the best of both worlds - excellent optics and portability of MAK - that I can also make 'Fast' with this item.

There's definitely a catch though. If you try to bring out more details in your images, a lot of vignetting and rings will come up. With average processing/stacking, the outer 50% of image will be almost useless (even flats won't repair it). The central 50% of the image will be completely clean. You crop remaining 50% out and you'll be left again with the original Field of View of the scope. This still isn't a problem, because you end up with the same FOV and less image resolution, but with considerably less exposure time for a slow scope.

In the end, its a compromise that I'm happy with. 5 Stars for making this option available.

Rating (max 5):  
Astro Essentials 0.5x 1.25" Focal Reducer
Thursday, 18 February 2021  | 

A good piece of kit. Small, robust and lightweight. Very pleased with it's performance. Thanks.

Rating (max 5):  
Astro Essentials 0.5x 1.25" Focal Reducer
Friday, 4 December 2020  | 

Another excellent product by Astro Essentials. Great quality and works well.

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