Open a Super-Highway of Light to the Cosmos: The Skywatcher AC 120 StarTravel AZ-3 Light Cannon!

• Unleash the Light Cannon: The giant 120mm (4.7-inch) aperture gathers 290 times more light than your eye, making faint galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters pop with stunning clarity and detail.
• Your Panoramic Spacewalk: Experience a vast, immersive field of view thanks to the short 600mm focal length. It’s like looking through the giant window of a spaceship, not a tiny porthole..
• Power Without the Pain: Get the awe-inspiring views of a large telescope without the complexity. The ultra-stable AZ-3 mount is incredibly intuitive—simply point, track with smooth, slow-motion controls, and be amazed.
• Ready for Two Worlds: The included 45° correct-image prism makes it a superb daytime spotting scope. Go from resolving distant star clusters at night to watching wildlife on a faraway hill in seconds.
• Future-Proof Your Hobby: The professional-grade 2-inch focuser (with 1.25-inch adapter) opens the door to using high-end, wide-angle 2-inch eyepieces for the ultimate immersive viewing experience.
• The Complete Adventure Kit: Everything you need is in the box, including two eyepieces, a finder scope, the crucial Amici prism, and even a T2 adapter to begin your journey into photography.

Achromatic Refractors

Achromats represent the classic, popular, modern lens telescope design. An achromat consists of not one, but two, objective lenses, usually made of crown glass and flint glass, which have the effect of a positive and a negative lens. The Skywatcher AC 120 refractor telescope has such an achromatic objective lens.

There's a feeling every budding astronomer knows. You've found your target—a distant galaxy or a faint nebula—but it's just a barely-there, ghostly smudge in the eyepiece. You can almost see the detail you know is there. You strain your eyes, use averted vision, and wish you could just "turn up the brightness" of the universe. This is "aperture fever," the deep-seated yearning for more light, the raw fuel that makes the cosmos come alive. You see incredible photos online and crave that level of detail, but your smaller telescope just can't collect enough photons to deliver the goods.

This hunger for light can lead to a frustrating crossroads. You know you need a bigger telescope, but the path forward seems fraught with complexity. Larger telescopes often mean heavy, complicated equatorial mounts that require polar alignment, counterweights, and a steep learning curve. The simplicity and joy of just going outside and looking up are suddenly replaced by a daunting technical checklist.

You feel stuck, wanting the power of a large instrument but also the freedom and simplicity of a "grab-and-go" setup. The fear of a complex mount keeps you from upgrading, leaving you perpetually underwhelmed, forever stuck observing faint fuzzies instead of the glorious, detailed celestial objects you dream of. Your passion for the cosmos feels limited, not by the universe itself, but by the gear you feel forced to choose between: power or simplicity.

What if you didn't have to choose? What if you could have the immense light-gathering power of a large telescope on a mount that is as easy to use as pointing your finger? That is the revolutionary promise of the Skywatcher AC 120 StarTravel AZ-3. We have shattered the compromise between power and simplicity, creating an instrument that delivers a firehose of light from the cosmos through an incredibly intuitive and user-friendly system.

The heart of this revolution is the colossal 120mm achromatic objective lens. This is your light-gathering engine. With a nearly 5-inch diameter, it collects a staggering 290 times more light than your naked eye. This isn't a small, incremental step up; it's a quantum leap. Faint objects are no longer faint. Dim star clusters explode into glittering fields of diamonds. The ghostly arms of the Andromeda Galaxy begin to resolve into distinct structures. This raw power is focused through a short 600mm focal length, creating an f/5 "Rich-Field" system that delivers a field of view so wide and immersive, it feels like you're falling into the stars.

We paired these brilliant optics with the intelligently designed AZ-3 mount. It’s the perfect blend of simplicity and precision. Its intuitive up-down, left-right motion means you can point and find objects in seconds. But the real magic is in the dual-axis slow-motion controls. Once you have your target, you can track it with a gentle, fluid turn of the control knobs.

And how do you control this beast? With effortless grace. The all-metal AZ-3 altazimuth mount is a masterpiece of practical engineering. It provides a rock-solid, stable foundation, eliminating the frustrating shakes and wobbles that plague lesser mounts. You move it left, right, up, and down. There is no alignment, no counterweights, no fuss. Once you've centered your object, the flexible slow-motion controls on both axes allow you to track it with silky-smooth precision. The Skywatcher AC 120 StarTravel AZ-3 is the ultimate solution for the astronomer who is starved for light but refuses to be bogged down by complexity. It’s your light cannon, and you are in complete command.

Specifications are just words on a page. The true magic of the Skywatcher AC 120 lies in the experiences its light-gathering power unlocks. It transforms your viewing from a passive observation into an active, breathtaking exploration.

That 120mm aperture isn't just a measurement; it's the key that unlocks the deep sky. It means the Great Orion Nebula is no longer just a fuzzy patch; it's a vast, glowing celestial cloud where you can begin to distinguish the four hot, young stars of the Trapezium at its heart. It’s the power to resolve individual stars in the globular cluster of Hercules, a city of a million suns. It’s the ability to hunt down and clearly see dozens of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. This is the power to go beyond the usual celestial tourist spots and become a true deep-sky explorer.

The f/5 focal ratio combined with the 2-inch focuser isn't just a technical feature; it's your gateway to the "spacewalk" experience. With the included 1.25-inch eyepieces, the views are already vast and impressive. But by adding an optional 2-inch wide-angle eyepiece, you remove the boundary of the eyepiece itself. The view becomes so wide, so immersive, that your eye forgets it's looking through a telescope. You feel like you are floating in space, surrounded by the infinite river of stars in the Milky Way. This is an experience that smaller telescopes with 1.25" focusers simply cannot deliver.

The included 45° Amici prism isn't just an accessory; it's what makes this a true dual-purpose instrument. It provides correctly oriented images, meaning text on a distant boat is readable and the landscape looks as it should. This means your investment isn't just for clear nights. It's for sunny days, for watching birds, for scanning the horizon, for bringing the distant world closer with the same stunning clarity you bring to the cosmos. The StarTravel 120 isn't just a telescope; it's a complete optical system for the endlessly curious explorer.

• "I upgraded from an 80mm scope, and the difference is night and day. The amount of light this 120mm pulls in is just incredible. Objects I struggled to find before are now bright and obvious. The Andromeda Galaxy is 3D! The AZ-3 mount is a joy to use, super smooth and stable." - A Thrilled Upgrader

• "This is the perfect 'grab-and-go' scope for someone who wants serious views. I can be set up and observing in 5 minutes. I took it to a star party, and people with much more expensive, complicated setups were lining up to look through my eyepiece at the Veil Nebula. The wide-field views are just that good." - An Experienced Amateur

Are you ready to stop squinting at the cosmos and start drinking it in with a firehose of light? The Skywatcher AC 120 StarTravel AZ-3 is your ticket to the brightest, widest, most immersive views imaginable in a simple, portable package. Click below to begin your light-gathering adventure.

In the world of astronomy, the combination of large aperture and grab-and-go simplicity is the holy grail. The Skywatcher AC 120 StarTravel AZ-3 is that grail, and word is getting out. Both beginners who want to start with a powerful instrument and experienced amateurs who want a simple, high-performance second scope want this telescope.

The precision-ground 120mm lenses and the robust, all-metal AZ-3 mounts are crafted with care. Don't let your cosmic journey be put on hold. Every clear night that passes is a missed opportunity to witness a distant galaxy, a glowing nebula, or the sprawling star fields of the Milky Way in breathtaking, light-drenched glory. Secure your Skywatcher AC 120 today and ensure that when the next clear sky calls, you'll be ready with your own personal light cannon.

The light-gathering power of the Skywatcher AC 120 will revolutionize your view of the Universe. Set it up, take it outside, and point it at the sky, and get blown away by the bright, crisp, wide-field images.

Is a 120mm telescope difficult for a beginner to handle? Not with this mount! While the optical tube is larger, the AZ-3 mount is designed for stability and simplicity. It handles the 4kg tube with ease, and the intuitive controls make it very beginner-friendly.

What is the main advantage of the 120mm aperture over smaller scopes? Light gathering! It collects nearly twice the amount of light as an 80mm scope and 2.25 times that of a 90mm. This makes faint, deep-sky objects like nebulae and galaxies significantly brighter, more detailed, and easier to see.

What is a "2-inch focuser" and why is it important? A 2-inch focuser is a feature typically found on more advanced telescopes. It allows you to use larger, 2-inch eyepieces (in addition to standard 1.25-inch ones with the included adapter), which can provide a much wider, more immersive field of view—the famous "spacewalk" effect.

Will I see color in nebulae with this telescope? While the human eye is not sensitive enough to see the vibrant colors captured in long-exposure photographs, the sheer brightness of the image delivered by the 120mm aperture will make it easier to perceive subtle hints of color in the brightest objects, like the greenish tint of the Orion Nebula.

Can I use it for high-magnification views of planets? Yes. While it's optimized for wide-field views, its large aperture gives it a high resolving power (0.96 arc-seconds), meaning it can show you a great deal of detail on Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon. You can easily use higher-power eyepieces (sold separately) to zoom in.

How heavy is the whole setup? The total weight is a very manageable 12.0 kg. It's easy for one person to carry the tripod and optical tube separately and set it up in just a few minutes.