![]() Expect to pay less if the scope’s lifetime transferable warranty is absent or otherwise invalid. Should I buy a Used Explore Scientific 127ED Essentials?Ī used 127ED has fairly little that can go wrong with it, though there are slight mechanical changes to newer models. Keep in mind that for any of these mounts, you will need to buy a Losmandy-style dovetail and bolt it to the tube rings, or buy a Losmandy-to-Vixen adapter for your mount. The Orion Atlas, Sky-Watcher EQ6R, and Losmandy G11 (the latter of which Explore Scientific offers with a wirelessly-controlled deluxe GoTo system) are all great choices for using the Essentials 127ED for imaging or visual use. Explore Scientific offers absolutely nothing in the way of mounting suggestions, so some users often buy rather lightweight mounts or even mounts that are plainly incapable of holding the scope.Ī Celestron Advanced VX holds the scope fine for visual use, though it is insufficient for astrophotography. Mount RecommendationsĪ heavy apochromatic triplet like the Essentials 127ED needs a good mount. If you are considering this scope for visual use and don’t already have a set of eyepieces, I would recommend at the very least buying a 30-40 mm 2-inch wide-angle eyepiece, a ~24 mm wide-angle eyepiece, and a few others that are in the 6, 9, and 15 mm focal length range.Įxplore Scientific is one of the best and most well-known eyepiece manufacturers out there, and they offer eyepieces at virtually every focal length, apparent field of view, and price. There are cases for ED80 and ED102, however. The Essentials 127ED used to come supplied with a case however, this is no longer true. The tube rings are attached to a standard Vixen-style dovetail. Unlike many scopes, the 127ED has a handle attached to the tube rings, which is helpful, considering the scope’s 18 pounds (8.16 kilograms). The Essentials 127ED also comes with two extension tubes to reach focus with the diagonal and an eyepiece. It is easily one of the best diagonals on the market today. The diagonal supplied with all Explore Scientific apochromats is a 2-inch dielectric mirror unit with a carbon-fiber body. These lighten the scopes by a few pounds and avoid the expansion and contraction problems that can sometimes occur when imaging with a metal tube. While it has a superior design compared to the standard Vixen/Synta shoes, it prevents you from using other brands of finders (besides Meade and Bresser).īoth the Essentials and FCD100 127ED are available with carbon fiber tubes. ![]() The scope comes with Explore Scientific’s standard finder shoe, which locks onto your finderscope with two nylon thumbscrews. The Essentials 127ED’s lens cell is collimatable, though collimating any refractor is an especially terrifying process, and you will hopefully not have to do it. If you aren’t happy with it, it’s not difficult to swap it out for a Moonlite, Feathertouch, or other aftermarket units, which, while expensive, pale in comparison to the cost of the Essentials 127ED by the time it is mounted and accessorized. The focuser on the Essentials 127ED is a fairly inexpensive but well-made dual-speed Crayford. ![]() However, the blue chromatic aberration can show up in images at similar levels to a mid-range ED doublet refractor. This does give the scope excellent performance in the red, allowing for crisp views of Jupiter and especially Mars, where many cheaper apochromats fail. Brighter objects do have a bluish fringe on them as the out-of-focus chromatic aberration of the scope is concentrated towards the blue end of the spectrum. Optically, the Essentials 127ED performs very well. However, compared to a top-of-the-line triplet or fluorite refractor, there is a little more chromatic aberration (the FCD100 version cleans up the image a little), and the triplet optics are, of course, heavier and require some additional cooldown time when setting up. Compared to a regular achromatic or ED doublet refractor of this size and speed, the 127ED has significantly less chromatic aberration and a flatter field for astrophotography. The Essentials 127ED’s long focal ratio further helps keep chromatic aberration at bay. There are a lot of bad FPL-53 doublets and triplets out there that perform worse at controlling chromatic aberration than the Essentials 127ED.
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