Presenting the Askar ACL200L Astrograph Lens
The world-first 200mm professional astrograph lens Optical Tube Assembly (OTA) is designed with a similar appearance as an ordinary manual camera lens and features an integrated structure. Askar ACL200L Camera Lens is precisely designed to optimize the quality of sky imaging. This ingenious optical apparatus successfully gets rid of otherwise redundant optical accessories. You will have no problem in operating ACL200 if you are familiar with ordinary cameras. It’s compact, light and easy to use. It’s ideal for deep-sky wide-field astrophotography with full-frame DSLR, mirrorless, and dedicated astronomy cameras using an optional 48mm T-ring adapter. The working distance is 55mm. It can also be used with cropped-sensor cameras for which it will provide a longer effective focal length. The lens includes a manual aperture ring and precision coarse and fine manual focusing mechanisms with a distance scale that make it easy to snap stars into a tight focus. It also incorporates a filter adapter to enable the use of standard 2″ astronomical filters.
This lens is equipped with collar that allows 360° rotation for optimal framing of celestial objects. The Arca-Swiss style connection plate offers a 3/8″ and 1/4″ female threads for mounting to a tripod, and the plate also fits standard Vixen-style saddles. The lens weighs just 1.5kg so it’s ideal for use on lightweight star tracker mounts.
With an adjustable focal ratio from f/4 to f/22, it also makes a great camera lens for wildlife, landscapes, and portraiture. The minimum focusing distance is approximately 3 meters.
You will no longer have to worry about the quality of the images stemming from vignetting or achromatic aberration. Askar ACL200L Camera Lens full frame astrophotograph lens (OTA) with built-in flattener can help you solve chromatic or other aberrations. Relatively fast f/4 focal ratio can effectively shorten exposure time and reduce the dependance on equatorial mount to track accurately for extended exposures.
Askar has modified the old ACL200, hoping to improve customers’ experience with it, it now includes a handle with standard Vixen dovetail finder slot, a new-type mounting ring and two extra thumbscrews.
Compared with the old mounting ring, the new ring has an extruding stalk for the installation of the handle. And the new-added handle with Vixen-style dovetail finder slot can be used for the attachment various accessories such as finders or ASI air controllers. Furthermore, the handle can also accommodate both a controller and a finder as it is of sufficient length to offer flexibility in use.
Below is a link to a video about the Askar ACL200L Astrograph Camera Lens.
NEW Askar ACL 200mm Full Frame Lens for Astrophotography – YouTube
Vincent Hammer –
An excellent little telescope in the sweet-spot 200mm focal length for astrophotography. Very sharp stars in all the corners.
I was a little concerned at first by some of the similarities to a conventional camera lens as I have had difficulties using those with my cooled astro cameras. However, in this case the actual conventional camera lens issues don’t exist and the similarities are strong points. For instance:
1) there is no slop/tilt with camera converters here: the astro camera screw directly to the back
2) to rotate your frame you rotate the entire scope and camera: no extra slop is added by a rotation device between the camera and the lens
3) the focusing mechanism is internal, again camera to scope connection remains fixed so there is no chance of play
4) it has two focusing rings, both have locking mechanisms, and even though it my look like the dreaded manual focusing ring of a dslr lens, the secondary ring allows finer control of the focus than a typical high end back mounted focuser on a typical telescope.
So in the end all this is an exceptional design for an exceptional price.
Hilmi Al-Kindy (official) –
I’m glad your enjoying the scope, I unfortunately dropped mine and knocked out of collimation