Is the HAC125 the same telescope as the HAC125DX?

No. Both are 125 mm f/2 Honders astrographs with a 250 mm focal length and a 16 mm corrected field, but the DX is slightly longer, focuses from the back, has a hole in its dew shield for the camera cable, and has a worldwide release.

Why was the HAC125 never sold in the UK or US?

It is very finicky. It only suits lipstick cameras, dew builds up on the secondary mirror at the front, and adjusting the primary mirror to get a flat field is a nightmare. First Light Optics state it was never imported into the UK.

Which cameras work with the HAC125?

Slim lipstick-style cameras that fit the 1.25 inch interface in the centre of the corrector. I used a QHY5III585C, whose USB-C port takes a very skinny cable that blocks as little light as possible; a bulkier camera obscures more of the view.

How fast is f/2 in practice?

Fast enough that 15-second exposures were plenty: my Pleiades is 13 minutes of 52 x 15 s, unguided, my Horsehead and Flame are 17 minutes of 68 x 15 s, and my Orion Nebula is 20 minutes of 80 x 15 s.

Can you fix the HAC125's star shapes?

Mostly, in processing. BlurXTerminator by Russell Croman removes blur caused by poor optics and the atmosphere, and it turned each of my HAC125 stacks into a finished image. The raw stacks beside the finals show how much it does.

What field of view does the HAC125 give?

With the QHY5III585C my frames plate-solve at about 2.45 arcsec per pixel, 244 to 247 mm of focal length and a 2.6 x 1.5 degree field: the Orion Nebula and the Running Man fit in one frame with room to spare.

Can you use an eyepiece with the HAC125?

No. There is no option to insert an eyepiece, as it would block all of the incoming light. The camera takes its place, and the live view on a screen replaces looking through it.

What mount does the HAC125 need?

Sky-Watcher never published a weight for the original tube; owners report about 3.7 kg, close to the 3.82 kg of the slightly longer HAC125DX. It comes on two rings with a Vixen-style dovetail, and I used mine on a ZWO AM5.

What have I not tested on the HAC125?

I have not tested the HAC125 on planets, with any camera other than the QHY5III585C, with filters, or with a measured star-shape test across the field.

Sky-Watcher HAC125 review: fast f/2 live views, fussy stars

Where does it rank on our leaderboard

Nine of the 42 telescopes on my board, against price
Rank	Telescope	Stars for Your Buck	Recorded UK price
1	Askar 50P	95 out of 100	£299
2	ToupTek Hope D60	93 out of 100	£749
3	Sky-Watcher HAC125DX	92 out of 100	£589
14	Askar 71F	81 out of 100	£599
25	Askar 185APO	71 out of 100	£5,049
32	Sky-Watcher HAC125	61 out of 100	£405
40	Celestron 63ED	43 out of 100	£322
41	Celestron 114 LCM	42 out of 100	£361
42	Celestron AstroMaster LT 76	13 out of 100	£200

Contents

01 Where does it rank on our leaderboard
02 Specifications and features
03 In the hand
04 How good is it? Here's what I captured
05 Raw against finished
06 The rig on the mount
07 What is it for
08 Watch the review
09 Tested numbers and the download
10 Should you buy it?
11 Questions and more about this review

In 30 seconds

Stars for Your Buck 61/100

Reviewed 28 Nov 2024 Updated 23 Sep 2026

Rank: #32 of 42 telescopes
Verdict: Worth a look

Written by Damon Scotting 5 min read

Buy it if

You want fast, bright live views of deep-sky objects to share with an audience
You own a slim lipstick-style camera and enjoy tinkering with collimation
You are happy to fix star shapes with deconvolution when you process

Skip it if

You want round stars straight from the camera: collimation is very hard to get right
You use a standard cooled astro camera: only slim 1.25 inch cameras suit it
You want to buy from a UK or US dealer: only its successor, the HAC125DX, is sold there

The speed of the HAC125 is undeniably impressive, but unless your collimation is perfect the images it produces are horrific.

AliExpress $540 Ad

Specifications and features

Against the telescopes I have reviewed

Compare with

Sky-Watcher HAC125 reviewed #32 of 42	Sky-Watcher HAC125DX #3 of 42	Celestron 8 inch RASA #35 of 42
Recorded UK price	£405	£589	£2,595
Stars for Your Buck	61/100	92/100	53/100
Aperture	125 mm	125 mm	203.2 mm (8 in)
Focal length	250 mm	250 mm	400 mm
Focal ratio	f/2	f/2	f/2.0
Optical design	Honders Advanced Catadioptric	Honders Advanced Catadioptric	Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph, 93 mm central obstruction
Image circle	16 mm corrected field	16 mm	22 mm, 3.15 degrees
Back focus	Approximately 40 mm from the front glass plate to the camera focal plane, owner-reported	Approximately 40 mm from the front glass plate to the camera focal plane, owner-reported	25 mm from the supplied adapters, 29 mm from the threaded collar
Focuser	Helical at the front: the camera mount in the centre of the corrector turns	Rear primary-mirror helical focuser	Ultra-Stable Focus System on precision linear ball bearings
Weight, tube	3.82 kg (8.4 lb)	3.82 kg	7.7 kg (17 lb) optical tube
Length, tube	399 mm (15.7 in)	399 mm (15.7 in), 160 mm diameter	628 mm tube, 235 mm diameter
Dew shield	Removable, screws onto the tube, no cable hole	Included	Not included
In the box	Two tube rings on a Vixen/CG5 dovetail, Mini Vixen finder shoe, removable dew shield, 1.25 in camera interface	Clamshell tube rings with V-style dovetail, dew shield, 1.25 in adapter, male and female M42x0.75 adapters	42 mm T-thread and C-thread camera adapters, fan battery pack, CGE dovetail bar

In the hand

Six frames from my videos

How good is it? Here's what I captured

Four targets

M 42 Orion Nebula, QHY5III585C

Integration: 20 min (80 x 15 s)
Field: 2.49 x 1.40 degrees
Telescope: Sky-Watcher HAC125
Camera: QHY5III585C
Mount: Unknown
Target: M 42 Orion Nebula
Type: Emission and reflection nebula
Location: Bortle 6.8 (in my garden)

IC 434 Horsehead and NGC 2024 Flame Nebula, QHY5III585C

Integration: 17 min (68 x 15 s)
Field: 2.50 x 1.45 degrees
Telescope: Sky-Watcher HAC125
Camera: QHY5III585C
Mount: Unknown
Target: IC 434 Horsehead and NGC 2024 Flame Nebula
Type: Dark and emission nebulae
Location: Bortle 6.8 (in my garden)

M 31 Andromeda Galaxy, QHY5III585C

Integration: 31 min (31 x 60 s)
Field: 2.58 x 1.44 degrees
Telescope: Sky-Watcher HAC125
Camera: QHY5III585C
Mount: Unknown
Target: M 31 Andromeda Galaxy
Type: Galaxy
Location: Bortle 6.8 (in my garden)

M 45 Pleiades, QHY5III585C

Integration: 30 min
Field: 2.58 x 1.44 degrees
Telescope: Sky-Watcher HAC125
Camera: QHY5III585C
Mount: Unknown
Target: M 45 Pleiades
Type: Open star cluster with reflection nebula
Location: Bortle 6.8 (in my garden)

Raw against finished

The rig on the mount

The 3 targets, the raw combined stack against my finished image, each with its integration, the camera and the palette:

M 42 Orion Nebula: 20 min (80 x 15 s) of light, QHY5III585C, the raw combined stack with one automatic stretch
IC 434 Horsehead and NGC 2024 Flame Nebula: 17 min (68 x 15 s) of light, QHY5III585C, the raw combined stack with one automatic stretch
M 45 Pleiades: 13 min (52 x 15 s) of light, QHY5III585C, the raw combined stack with one automatic stretch

On the JUWEI-17, then on six other mounts

What is it for

Four things it is for

Live views of the night sky

What you see here is live footage captured with the telescope. It is practically as close as it gets to what these objects look like through a telescope: I have boosted the saturation a little, and you are not squinting with one eye to focus. It also shows what happens around the object in real time, so a satellite that once spoiled an image becomes an exciting spectacle.

Fifteen-second exposures at f/2

This is a 13-minute stacked image of the Seven Sisters, unguided, made from exposures of just 15 seconds. Even at exposures that short the telescope made light work of it.

Lipstick cameras only

Inside it I cannot put just any camera. I have to use what is known as a lipstick camera, because other cameras obscure more of the view and let less light in. In a Newtonian the secondary mirror sends the light out to the side; this design puts the camera right in front of the view.

A sequence of targets for outreach

I found a simple way to run a sequence of targets on the HAC125 at the start of a session, so every few minutes it zips to a new deep-sky target. Half the time I do not know what it is looking at, which is quite exciting, and it makes it practically a dream telescope for astronomy outreach.

Watch the review

This COULD have been the BEST Telescope EVER?! · published 28 November 2024 · 9:11 · Watch on YouTube · 59,933 views, 1,351 likes on 2 Oct 2026

Jump to

0:47 My setup: the AM5 and a lipstick camera
1:09 Why the camera sits in the light path
1:34 Live views through the HAC125
2:51 A 13-minute stack of the Pleiades
3:25 Collimation and star shapes
3:42 BlurXTerminator on the raw stacks
5:07 Against a RASA and a HyperStar
6:30 Why it was never sold in the UK or US
7:54 A sequence of targets for outreach

Transcript of the review video 1,647 words · 10 chapters · searchable

Press a time stamp to play from there.

0:00 One of the fastest telescopes in the world

0:00 this is one of the fastest telescopes in the world and it is forbidden it will not be sold in the US or UK and that for 0:06 good reason it's sold on a Chinese website called AliExpress a telescope like this for under £500 is completely unheard of it had the 0:15 potential to be a game changer but unfortunately it never even got the chance to reach the market in today's episode I'm going to be showcasing you 0:22 the Fantastic things that this telescope is capable of such as giving you a live view of deep Sky objects such as the Andromeda Galaxy you can also take some 0:30 pretty special images and do some other very cool things I'm also going to be explaining in detail as to why this is expected to not hit the market and to be 0:39 fair I think some of the reasons are very well Justified I'm Damon Scotting and this is astronomical right so the setup that I have with me right now is an AM5 mount

0:47 My setup: the AM5 and a lipstick camera

0:51 the Sky-Watcher HAC125 obviously that's what this review is about but then inside it I can't just put any plain old camera I have to use what is known as a 1:00 lipstick camera this is due to the fact that if you use other types of cameras it obscures more and more of the actual telescope View and therefore it means 1:08 you're letting less light in traditionally with Newtonian telescopes you'll have a secondary mirror that's placed somewhere around this point with inside a telescope and then you'll have

1:09 Why the camera sits in the light path

1:15 your eyepiece coming out just here now that's good that means if you're looking into a telescope you're taking images you're not blocking any of the light 1:21 coming in whereas this design has a very obvious flaw and that is that you're obstructing your view right before I get too deep into the bad parts of the 1:27 Sky-Watcher HAC125 allow me to demonstrate why this scope has the potential to be the best telescope ever made what you're seeing right now is

1:34 Live views through the HAC125

1:36 live footage captured with the telescope live this right here is practically as close as it gets to what these objects will look like when viewed through a 1:44 telescope the only difference is I've boosted the saturation a little and you're not having to squint with one eye in order to focus on viewing the object 1:52 not only is this an incredible viewing experience it allows you to capture what's happening around the object in real time what I mean by that is it more 2:00 often our images are spoiled by these bright streaks of light passing through them these are most often caused by satellites but what was once an 2:07 annoying interference has now become an exciting spectacle it's kind of like a meteor shower only far more abundant to add an extra layer of depth to your 2:14 observations you can open up your Sky Atlas such as Stellarium and locate your current Target to see what satellite it was that just passed by in the rare case 2:23 it may have actually been several human beings that just zipped past aboard the International Space Station so here we have the fastest telescope in 2:43 the Galaxy bringing the light from Deep Sky wonders to us in a dramatic fashion but there is a reason telescope companies rarely go for this design and

2:51 A 13-minute stack of the Pleiades

2:51 here's why this is a 13-minute stacked image of the Seven Sisters now I thoroughly expect your viewing experience of these images to go from 2:59 Wow to oh never mind to holy this image was unguided in fact I actually reduced exposures all the way down to 15 seconds that's for two reasons number 3:09 one the telescope could handle it even at short enough exposures such as this it made light work number two my Stars kept appearing to Trail the truth was 3:18 that even at 2 minutes long exposures they still had the exact same shape and that is due to the design of the telescope I really cannot emphasize this

3:25 Collimation and star shapes

3:27 enough but the collimation of this telescope is a gigantic pain in the a**. Star shapes like this are going to be unavoidable and nobody wants this it's such a huge 3:35 shame because otherwise the level of detail the scope picks up in under 15 minutes is very impressive if only there was a way to correct the star shape well

3:42 BlurXTerminator on the raw stacks

3:44 there is an effective editing cheat code that many astrophotographers have been utilizing for the last few years and that is the BlurXTerminator tool by Russell 3:53 Croman this tool helps to remove the blur in your images caused by bad Optics and Atmospheric disturbance prepare yourself for the ridiculous transformation that's about to occur 4:05 I don't think that there are many more sets of images on the planet that are more perfectly designed to be enhanced by this tool it turns each of 5:02 them into works of art you see this is what gets me excited about a telescope especially at a super low price the cheapest RASA telescope you can buy is

5:07 Against a RASA and a HyperStar

5:11 at least £2,000 RASA telescopes have a similarly fast focal ratio you can actually convert Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes into RASAs through the help of a tool 5:19 known as a hyperstar so perhaps you're watching this video about the Sky-Watcher HAC125 available for under £500 and thinking nah why not just go for the 5:28 Celestron 6 and slap on a hyperstar like this guy here well it's a fair point except for the fact that the hyperstar alone can 5:36 cost significantly more than the Sky-Watcher HAC125 and that's before you even purchased a telescope to go with it as it currently stands the only 5:45 place I'm confident any of you watching this can reliably get this telescope from is AliExpress and as of right now 5:53 they do currently have big black Friday promotion sales which means you can get this telescope for even cheaper just keep your eye out for the Postage and 6:00 customs fees so it's undeniable that the speed of this telescope is impressive achieving views like this for under £500 is astonishing but with that being said 6:08 unless your collimation is perfect then the images produced are horrific unless you use deconvolution tools that bring the star shapes back around to the normal 6:18 standard now although this is a very common editing method would you consider this to be cheating let me know what your thoughts are down in the comments 6:25 below so we've seen what makes this scope so special and why you should buy it but let's finish off with why you really shouldn't so one of the biggest

6:30 Why it was never sold in the UK or US

6:32 issues as to why it's not going to hit the market is because it's very finicky the use of lipstick cameras makes it very restrictive it's very susceptible 6:40 to building up dew on the secondary mirror just here and also adjusting the primary mirror at the back has been a nightmare it feels like it's pretty much 6:48 impossible to get a completely uniform flat image across the board there always seems to be a slight Distortion in my star shapes due to the fact that I can't 6:57 perfectly align this so it's been very frustrating but with that being said all of it been worth it cuz I thoroughly enjoy this telescope and the things I've been 7:04 capable of doing with it in fact in a future video I'm going to be showcasing you guys my Observatory setup and I've been doing something very cool with this 7:11 particular setup which I'm going to wait to show you in a future video actually I've had a change of heart since filming this review video I am going to give you 7:17 a sneak peek into one of my upcoming videos titled The best/worst Observatory ever and this is because I've got a long list of videos I need to release before 7:25 this one so make sure you have the Bell notification turned on in order to hear about it once it does become visible I've tried my best to make a warm 7:31 feeling setup in my garden on a very limited budget since traditional observatories cost an arm and a leg and have their own long list of pros and 7:38 cons what's extra unique about my setup is that I have one rig designated for Astro Imaging you know long exposure images and the other specifically for 7:47 live viewing of the night sky which constitutes anything from the moon to the Andromeda galaxy in fact I figured out a simple method to execute a

7:54 A sequence of targets for outreach

7:55 sequence of targets on the Sky-Watcher HAC125 at the start of my session so every few minutes it zips between a new deep Sky Target this is really fun 8:06 because half the time I don't know what it's looking at which is quite exciting my main focus most nights is taking actual images with my telescope most 8:14 recently telescopes I've been sent to complete a review on before Christmas but having the Sky-Watcher HAC125 in the background is a game changer and makes the 8:22 whole experience a lot more exciting in my upcoming video I explore a lot of different accessories that make my own Observatory the perfect stargazing 8:28 experience as well as the limiting factors that can really hamper the observations I'm excited to share this all with you but as for now let's focus 8:36 on this clever little scope so if you're interested in Sky-Watcher HAC125 and you want to purchase one for yourself then I've included a product Link in the 8:44 description below it is an international website meaning it ships to pretty much everywhere worldwide um fair warning you are going to have to deal with customs charges these vary 8:56 depending on what country you live in thanks for watching I'm Damon Scotting and this was astronomical

Check out more videos on the Sky-Watcher HAC125

CHEAP v.s EXPENSIVE Telescope Gear?!

18 Dec 2024

WAS this the BEST week of STARGAZING EVER?!

29 Oct 2024

Tested numbers and the download

Finished image

Licence: for personal use, credit Damon Scotting. Both JPEGs 3,657 x 2,055 px.

Unknown sensor temperature during imaging

245 mm focal length, plate solved Sky-Watcher states 250 mm

2.58 x 1.47° field of view 3,856 x 2,180 px on QHY5III585C

8.4 MP QHY5III585C 3,856 x 2,180 px, 11.2 x 6.3 mm

Should you buy it?

61/100 Stars for Your Buck

Pros

At f/2 it is one of the fastest telescopes in the world: 15-second exposures made light work of the Seven Sisters.
It is fast enough to record bright live video of the night sky, about as close as it gets to what these objects look like through a telescope.
Practically a dream telescope for outreach: zip between targets at a moment's notice and show an audience live clusters, nebulae and galaxies.
Deconvolution turns its stacks into works of art, and the detail it picks up in under 15 minutes is very impressive.
Portable and light for a 125 mm f/2 astrograph, and it cost under £500 when the cheapest RASA was at least £2,000.

Cons

Collimation is a gigantic pain: unless it is perfect, distorted star shapes are unavoidable.
Severely limited camera choice: the camera sits in front of the corrector, so only slim lipstick-style cameras suit it.
Focus is a helical at the front, so your hand blocks the starlight while you focus.
A dew magnet: dew builds up on the secondary mirror at the front of the tube.
It was never sold by UK or US dealers and has since been replaced by the HAC125DX.

If you've got the patience to play with it, I don't think there are many more fun telescopes out there on the market.

Who the HAC125 is for

Outreach and live-view host

Buy

Zipping between targets and bringing an audience live views of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies is what the HAC125 does best.

Tinkerer with a lipstick camera

Buy

If you already own a slim 1.25 inch camera such as the QHY5III585C and enjoy adjusting collimation, few telescopes are more fun.

Complete beginner

Skip

The HAC125 is a finicky tube that also needs a mount, a slim camera and a computer. My recommendation is the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro, which gives live views from one box.

Owner of a cooled APS-C camera

Skip

Only slim lipstick cameras suit the HAC125 and its corrected field is 16 mm. My recommendation is the ToupTek Hope D60, which covers full frame at 280 mm.

Imager who wants round stars

Skip

Star shapes are distorted unless collimation is perfect, and the images in my review needed BlurXTerminator. My recommendation is the HAC125DX, whose stars were a healthy shape out of the box.

Buyer who wants a UK or US dealer

Skip

The original HAC125 was never sold by UK or US dealers and has been replaced. My recommendation is the HAC125DX, stocked by First Light Optics and Agena Astro.

Three alternatives I have reviewed

Questions and more about this review

Reviewed by

Damon Scotting

The Telescope Man Verified

BSc (Hons) Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology, Loughborough University PGCE / QTS, University of Nottingham

About Damon About Damon Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology from Loughborough University and a PGCE with QTS from the University of Nottingham, and taught physics in secondary schools before becoming an astronomy creator. He is a contributing writer for BBC Sky at Night Magazine and the author of 42 Wonders of Our Night Sky, and his photograph of the galaxy M100 with the dwarf planet Ceres was Highly Commended in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition run by Royal Observatory Greenwich. He has appeared on the BBC's Blue Peter. More than 750,000 people follow his astronomy channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and he has reviewed more than 140 telescopes, mounts, cameras, filters and accessories hands-on for this site. More about Damon · How I test · Damon's book

I review all kinds of gear: most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way. How this site is funded

Nine questions, answered

Questions about the Sky-Watcher HAC125

Reviewed 28 November 2024 ·Updated 23 September 2026

I review all kinds of gear. Most of it I buy, some is gifted and some is loaned, and all of it is reviewed the same way: no company sees or approves a review before it is published. Shop links marked Ad are affiliate links: I earn a commission when you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. How this site is funded

Is the HAC125 the same telescope as the HAC125DX? No. Both are 125 mm f/2 Honders astrographs with a 250 mm focal length and a 16 mm corrected field, but the DX is slightly longer, focuses from the back, has a hole in its dew shield for the camera cable, and has a worldwide release.
Why was the HAC125 never sold in the UK or US? It is very finicky. It only suits lipstick cameras, dew builds up on the secondary mirror at the front, and adjusting the primary mirror to get a flat field is a nightmare. First Light Optics state it was never imported into the UK. What is it for ↓
Which cameras work with the HAC125? Slim lipstick-style cameras that fit the 1.25 inch interface in the centre of the corrector. I used a QHY5III585C, whose USB-C port takes a very skinny cable that blocks as little light as possible; a bulkier camera obscures more of the view. What is it for ↓
How fast is f/2 in practice? Fast enough that 15-second exposures were plenty: my Pleiades is 13 minutes of 52 x 15 s, unguided, my Horsehead and Flame are 17 minutes of 68 x 15 s, and my Orion Nebula is 20 minutes of 80 x 15 s. The raw stacks against the finished images ↓
Can you fix the HAC125's star shapes? Mostly, in processing. BlurXTerminator by Russell Croman removes blur caused by poor optics and the atmosphere, and it turned each of my HAC125 stacks into a finished image. The raw stacks beside the finals show how much it does. The raw stacks against the finished images ↓
What field of view does the HAC125 give? With the QHY5III585C my frames plate-solve at about 2.45 arcsec per pixel, 244 to 247 mm of focal length and a 2.6 x 1.5 degree field: the Orion Nebula and the Running Man fit in one frame with room to spare. Tested numbers and the download ↓
Can you use an eyepiece with the HAC125? No. There is no option to insert an eyepiece, as it would block all of the incoming light. The camera takes its place, and the live view on a screen replaces looking through it. Watch the review ↓
What mount does the HAC125 need? Sky-Watcher never published a weight for the original tube; owners report about 3.7 kg, close to the 3.82 kg of the slightly longer HAC125DX. It comes on two rings with a Vixen-style dovetail, and I used mine on a ZWO AM5. The rig on the mount ↓
What have I not tested on the HAC125? I have not tested the HAC125 on planets, with any camera other than the QHY5III585C, with filters, or with a measured star-shape test across the field.