Sky-Watcher Evostar-90 AZ Pronto telescope and mount

A complete package with everything you need to start stargazing

Entry-level telescopes often get bad press but, given the chance, they can surprise in terms of what they are able to reveal in the night sky. The Sky-Watcher Evostar-90 AZ Pronto is one such instrument. It consists of an achromatic refractor and SkyWatcher’s newest altaz mount, the AZ Pronto.

The refractor has a 90mm (3.5-inch) front lens with two elements to help keep colour fringing to a minimum, although this optical arrangement is not sufficient to eliminate it completely. Its focal length is 900mm, giving it a focal ratio of f/10 – enough light grasp to provide reasonable views of a range of targets, from the denizens of the deep sky to the planets and the Moon.

An erect-image diagonal is supplied, so as a bonus you could also use the telescope for terrestrial viewing too. Two eyepieces are provided, 25mm and 10mm, which give magnifications of 36x and 90x with this scope. A 6x30 straightthrough finderscope completes the optical setup, and it gives reasonable views of bright stars, allowing you to navigate the night sky and home in on deep-sky targets through star hopping.

The AZ Pronto mount and tripod system is well made and easy to use. When the locking clamps on each axis are loosened slightly, the mount can be moved manually, and there are smooth slowmotion controls for both axes to help you fine tune onto targets. The slow-motion controls can also be attached at two different points on each axis, which may prove useful if you ever wanted to replace the supplied refractor with a reflector.

The tripod has an adjustable height range of 78.5-150cm, gives enough support and is reasonably sturdy, without suffering too much from vibration. We also found the supplied tripod tube extension to be a particularly useful inclusion. When viewing targets close to the zenith a refractor’s focuser can end up quite low down, but with the extension in place, you don’t have to bend down quite so far.

Eagle vision

Aiming at Altair in Aquila, we examined the field of view using the 25mm eyepiece. Altair was nice and crisp at the centre and remained so for around 70 per cent of the view, beyond which some colour fringing and distortion crept in – though the view was acceptable enough.

We then took a tour of some late summer favourites, including the Dumbbell Nebula (M27 in Vulpecula), the Ring Nebula (M57 in Lyra), and globular cluster M13 in Hercules, examining them all with both supplied eyepieces. The wide field of view of the 25mm eyepiece delivered a quite small but still distinctive view of M57 and showed M13 as a hazy glow, whilst the 10mm eyepiece gave a hint of stars scattered across the globular. Turning roughly northeastwards, we homed in on the galaxy pair of