A long focal length folded into a short tube · review
An eight-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain on a single-arm computerised fork mount, with a 40 000-object database and the maker’s SkyAlign alignment routine.
The bottom line The aperture-per-cubic-metre champion of this group, sold with a headline object count that says nothing about what it will show.
A Schmidt-Cassegrain runs the light down the tube, back to a secondary mirror, and out through the centre of the primary. The result is a long focal length inside a short tube — eight inches of aperture in something a person carries with one arm. That compactness is the entire argument for this design.
Focal length. It is the number that decides magnification with any eyepiece, the focal ratio, and the exit pupil. The maker publishes it elsewhere; it is not in this advertisement, and this page will not import a figure from another source and present it as this listing’s.
The routine asks the observer to centre three bright objects and works out the rest. What it automates is pointing; it does not make an unaligned mount accurate, and an object centred on a misidentified star produces confident, consistent errors all evening.
For long exposures a fork mount on a tripod tracks in altitude and azimuth, which rotates the field. A wedge fixes that, and it is a separate purchase. Visually, none of this matters at all.
German, French, Italian and Spanish Amazon stores ran from 1537 € to 1961 € on the day of the survey.
American and British Amazon stores list it in local currency, which the euro range above sets aside.
Figures as Keepa reported them on the day this page was last updated. Stock and pricing shift without warning.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 17 September 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.
| Aperture | 8 inches, as the maker writes it |
|---|---|
| Folded focal length and ratio | The listing does not carry it |
| Corrector design | Schmidt-Cassegrain with the maker’s XLT coating |
| Obstruction | Not published by the maker. |
| Back focus | Not published by the maker. |
| Cool-down guidance | Not published by the maker. |
| Tube weight | Not published by the maker. |
| Mount supplied | Single-arm computerised fork on a steel tripod |
| Amazon reference | B000GUFOC8 (same reference on 6 Amazon marketplaces) |
| EAN | 0050234110693 |
Light travels down the tube, back up to a secondary, and out through a hole in the primary. The optical path is folded into roughly a third of the physical length, which is what makes eight inches portable.
Very little on its own. What matters is whether the lists you actually use are quick to reach in the dark. Most of those entries are beyond this or any amateur instrument.
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