Steve Ringwood – Astronomy Now

Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi SkyMax 127

29 July 2022 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood reviews a tabletop beauty with a healthy aperture that is also just as home on a tripod, and has Go-To to boot.

ScopeTech’s STL-80A Maxi, f/15 refractor

1 July 2022 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood goes back to the future, for the new STL-80A Maxi f/15 from ScopeTech is a self-confessed, unabashed return to the classical achromatic refractor.

The ScopeTech Mount Zero, highly portable single-arm fork mount

29 June 2022 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood trials ScopeTech’s new Mount Zero, which is a highly portable single-arm fork mount that is both compact and simple to use.
refractor

Baader Planetarium flip mirror II Star Diagonal

3 June 2022 Steve Ringwood

This latest flip-mirror star diagonal from Baader Planetarium offers high-quality views for imagers who want to use a guiding eyepiece, as well as a revolutionary third port for off-axis autoguiding, writes Steve Ringwood.

RVO Horizon 72mm ED: The future of refractors is on the Horizon

29 April 2022 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood checks out a new offering from Rother Valley Optics that raises the bar for compact refractors.

Binocular vision: Helios Lightquest HR 28 x 110

22 April 2022 Steve Ringwood

Helios’ new large and extremely powerful binoculars are like twin light-buckets that give wide and deep views of the night sky, but does their design match their optical capability? Steve Ringwood finds out.

APM HDC-XWA 7mm, 100-Degree X-Treme Eyepiece, a real eyeful

25 March 2022 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood got his hands on APM’s new HDC-XWA 7mm, 100-degree X-treme eyepiece, and found out how its large field of view and powers of magnification fill an important gap.

Sky-Watcher’s Sun-seeker

28 July 2019 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood reviews the Solarquest goto solar mount that helps observers track and image our nearest star.

Orion Funscope Astro Dazzle 4.5” reflector kit

22 November 2016 Steve Ringwood

Steve Ringwood appraises the Orion Funscope Astro Dazzle, an eye-catching 4½-inch (114-mm) f/4.4 Newtonian reflector on a tabletop Dobsonian mount designed for beginners. The pre-assembled instrument possesses an inherent simplicity that will not challenge, with an aperture that brings a wealth of astronomy’s best to the viewer, he says.

Orion 60mm multi-use guidescope

3 September 2016 Steve Ringwood

These days, more is expected of a finder than to merely direct the main telescope to a celestial object of interest. This versatile 60mm f/4 instrument possesses a fine movement non-rotating helical focuser that has been designed to double as a traditional finder or guidescope with Orion’s StarShoot AutoGuiders, says reviewer Steve Ringwood.