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Sky-Watcher: telescope brand overview
Sky-Watcher is a commercial distribution company established in 1999 by the Taiwanese astronomical optics manufacturer Synta. It markets and sells astronomy equipment including telescopes, mounts and eyepieces, and is aimed at the amateur astronomy market.
Who Sky-Watcher is
Sky-Watcher is a commercial distribution company established in 1999 by the Taiwanese astronomical optics manufacturer Synta. It markets and sells astronomy equipment including telescopes, mounts and eyepieces, and is aimed at the amateur astronomy market. The products are manufactured at Synta Taiwan's Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co., Ltd. in Suzhou, China. The brand is distributed in Canada, Europe and in the late 2000s, it was extended to the United States market.
Sky-Watcher has been founded in 1999. It is one of the makers whose telescopes amateur astronomers meet most often, so understanding its ranges helps when you are choosing a scope or fitting accessories to one you already own.
What they are known for
Sky-Watcher is known for affordable Newtonian and Dobsonian reflectors, the Explorer and Flextube ranges, Evostar and Esprit refractors, the Maksutov Skymax series, and the widely used EQ5, HEQ5 and EQ6 equatorial mounts.
Ranges from a single maker often span several optical designs and both beginner and premium tiers, so two telescopes wearing the same badge can behave very differently. The important numbers for choosing an eyepiece are always the telescope's own aperture, focal length and focuser size, not the brand on the tube.
Fitting eyepieces and accessories to a Sky-Watcher telescope
Whatever telescope you own from this maker, the eyepiece maths is the same: magnification is the telescope's focal length divided by the eyepiece's focal length, and the true field of view is the eyepiece's apparent field divided by that magnification. Confirm your own model's focal length and focuser barrel size, since a range can span several designs and both 1.25 inch and 2 inch fittings.
A longer focal-length scope reaches high power with ordinary eyepieces, while a short fast scope needs shorter eyepieces for the same magnification and rewards better-corrected glass. Use the Fit My Telescope tool with your exact focal length to get the magnification, true field and exit pupil for any eyepiece pairing before you buy.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Suzhou |
| Founded | 1999 |
Structured facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Fit eyepieces to your Sky-Watcher telescope
Open the Fit My Telescope toolMatch eyepieces to your Sky-Watcher scope's focal lengthFind Sky-Watcher telescope on eBayaffiliateRelated
Sources: Sky-Watcher (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA) ยท Wikidata (CC0)