Svbony 3-8mm Zoom Review. The Budget High Power Planetary / Moon Telescope Eyepiece of Dreams???
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- Опубликовано: 20 дек 2022
- Do you own a shorter focal length telescope(probobly an APO) and struggle to get it to higher magnification. The Svbony 3-8mm Zoom is the answer! But is it optically any good and worth the expense? Watch to find out!
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I've honestly been impressed with several Svbony products.. I have a couple of their 2" Eyepieces and a couple of their goldlines and the 2" ones in particular, maybe not the best performing ever, but they are extremely comfortable to use.. super forgiving eye placement, no black outs or kidney beans. Even compared with my higher end stuff, they have a place in my case and are great for outreach. Ive looked through their ED refractors and they punch above their price as well.
Svbony really does a good thing for beginners or observers on a budget
Well they have sent me a few things to review in the past. This eyepiece is the first thing that I requested from them(and thanks to them for sending it to me!) as I actually wanted something like this for my personnel observing collection.
I really have no horse in the game besides keeping the product after the review is done. And I'm honestly quite impressed by how much performance you get out of their "budget" product!
Interesting review, thanks Vlad!
Glad you liked it!
Nice review!
Glad you liked it👍 Thanks for the feedback.
I just saw a video yesterday about the 3 eyepiece set they sell. It looks great for $44. For the set!!!! Crazy price. I wish these were around when I was younger starting out.
Oh wow, very cool. Yeah I'm not sure what set you are referring to. I have seen some of their VERY low end eyepieces and they where, ... well "low end". LOL.
Svbony has great quailty products! And this brand is so unfamous in Europe... I personally love its astro cams!
Yeah for the money I'm generally quite impressed with the quality of their kit!
Thanks for the review!
I was unaware of this eyepiece. I've longed for the Nagler zoom, but $$$.
Seems like this would pair very well with my Baader Mark IV.
I have the 2.25x barlow for the Baader, but between the switch-over time and the need to run a extension tube in 2" mode it becomes painful to switch back and forth.
I see your complaints about weather and raise them. I'm up in Minnesota and last night was the first clear night since the Mars occulatation on 07DEC. The air temp was -10F/-23C at 8PM local, so I did not go out. ;-)
Dude, I see y'all's weather complaints and raise 'em triple... My logs skip from 11-17 to 12-1 to 12-16 and I observer every single night that the sky is clear!! I went almost a month without getting "Don The Dob" set up. Hell 12-16 & 12-17 weren't even with my dob, I was using a pair of 15×70s because the conditions were south of suboptimal.
The Baader MkIV + Barlow needing an extension tube is my biggest complaint about the zoom lol. I almost gave the 35mm extension tube that came with my last scope away because I never used it, I just move the EP out of the focuser slightly.
I got the MkIV and was super excited to be able to use it 2" with a wide field EP for grab-n-go while ditching the 1¼" - 2" adapter, but then I had to turn around and start carrying the extension tube... 🤦🏼♂️
I guess if that's my biggest problem with it then it's a keeper lol.
Yeah using the Baader zoom with barlow is a path. I honestly have no issue using barlows with small eyepieces. Once its up to the size of the BZ its a no go for me. Just a personnel preference.
Thanks for sharing Vlad! I think svbony is doing beginner amateur astronomers a lot of good by giving us budget versions of popular pricey products. Especially their new APO's i've heard good things about them. Any chance you've tried svbony apo's?
Funny that you should ask. I was at my astronomy clubs telescope workshop a few weeks ago and saw the 80mm APO that they make for the first time. I only got to look through it at a rooftop but was pretty impressed by the build quality and the very nice focuser(at the price range). It looked like a nice scope to me!
Just got my Svbony 3-8mm zoom eyepiece delivered today, and guess what it came without clouds! I'm going to try it out tonight primarily on the moon as the moon being 99% full the sky is kind of washed out.
Venus is fairly high up in the evening right now. But yes you will likely need to wait for Saturn and Jupiter to be back out to really give the eyepiece and exercise.
Vlad as I am worried about the view comfort being a begginer, do you feel like is a viable solution also for public as the eyelens looks really small and everyone will brush the eyebrows on the lens to view something? Or am I judging this to harsh just from the images ? Thank you
For the public I'd honestly want a longer eye relief option. It's really almost not sanitary when lots of people are touching the eyepice.
Yo Vlad, I need some help with EP recommendations...
I just started building a EP kit for a 8" Dob (f/5.9) in the 68°-72° AFOV range, and I need some recommendations to fill the gap in the 10-12mm range.
I seem to really like a AFOV around that 70° range because I'm able to take in the whole view while still being able to see the field stop without getting "lost" looking around in the EP, but I'll admit that I haven't used many EPs much wider than that. I started my EP set with a Baader MkIV + 2.25× Barlow and a APM UFF 30mm. I really like this simple Zoom + Barlow + Wide Field setup, but it does leave something to be desired in the mid mag range since FOV starts getting tight above 12mm. So I decided to keep my zoom for planetary & double stars but keep building the EP set. I just added 3 ES 68° eyepieces to fill out the high FL gap: 16, 20, & 24mm.
Now I'm looking to fill in that 10-12mm gap, which most everyone tells me will end up being my most used EP for DSOs. 12mm would give me 100× with that magical 2mm exit pupil. I'd like a eyepiece that would work well with the other EPs I've got, as for the size & weight being close. I've had the 12mm Delos recommended along with the 10mm XW and the wider 76° 12.5mm Morpheus, but I'm still not sure lol.
So what do ya think Buddy?? Should a 10mm or 12mm EP be my next purchase or should I think about filling another gap first?? Should I stick with the ~70° AFOV or more up to wider in the short FL range?? Should I just sell my house, use the money to buy all Ethos and live homeless & happy??
Thanks for taking the time to read this dude. Clear skies,
- AstroApe (aka Matthew)
What I would do is cut the 20mm ES loose and replace it with a 12-10mm. The 24mm is all you need on the wide range. I really think yhe 20mm is redundant. And there is nothing wrong with the ~68* eyepieces. I own a case full of 100* ES but use my 68* more for the reasons you stated!
@@AVTAstro Yeah I agree that the 20mm is redundant. I was looking to pick up something in the 16-20mm range whenever I found the 16, 20, & 24mm all for sale by the same guy on AstroMart. They were a good deal, all the newest versions, and look practically unused so I pulled the trigger and got all 3 to test out.
I'm fairly new to the hobby and don't have a ton of experience with different EPs, so I thought first hand experience with them would be better than trying to figure it out from reviews and FOV simulators. I'm basically at the point in the hobby where I've got just enough knowledge & experience to make me dangerous lol.
Makes sense. Thats the fun part of the hobby is trying out gear. How do you think I ended up here. hahahahaha
@@Astro_Apealso the 16 and 20mm 68/panoptic clones are getting tight on eye relief, hence televue discontinued the 15mm panoptic. The JOC 68s are a direct copy of the panoptic design.
And the 20 and 24 are a bit redundant, but a wider 16mm wouldn't be, such as a uwan/pwa/stellarvue 82deg 16mm.
And you can't go wrong with an 11mm nagler or es82, buy since the es82 is north of $225, it is worth it to spring a little more for the nagler, OR, since I have noticed pentax prices have come down considerably, on sale for $269, a pentax 10mm XW is an EXCELLENT choice and in the 70deg field you like, with long 20mm eye relief.
A used 12mm big boy type 2 or type.4 nagler is also an option, and the closest to that desired 2mm exit pupil that is so recommended for galaxies. I tend to prefer a 1.5mm exit pupil for globulars, which is an 8.8mm ultrawide/9mm nagler in the 8" dob. Which is pOne of the reasons I miss my xt8 thay was lost a few years ago in my van being stole-pounded while loaded with gear a few years ago. But I also have a a 14mn UWA that I can do the same thing with in my C8.
Vixen LVW lanthanum superwide eyepieces are another consideration, being 65deg, sharp to the edge and 20mm eye relief, very similar to pentax XW/XL in performance, they come in 8mm and 13mm in that range, also 17mm and 22mm, as well as 5mm and I think down to 3.5mm as well.
I too get tempted to fill holes, but in the 10mm and 12mm range I just have 12.5 ortho, and 12.4mm super plossls in 4 and 5 element versions, and 10mm and 9.7mm plossls, but I have to live with that because I no longer have the disposable income, nor access to deals like I had when working at OPT in 2006-2011.
If money was no object and an 8" dob was my main scope, I would have type 6 naglers in 5mm, 7mm, 9mm, 11mm and 13mm, 7, 9, 13 and a TV 2x barlow if slightly more limited
Plz help , a 8 inch dobsonian or a 5 inch mak , which is better
Well it depends on what your planning on observing. I have a hunch that if the dob has a good mirror it will do better on everything, but certainly on deep sky objects. 5" mak is a great grab and go scope(its what I use actually for this role)!
Just bought one (it came with package deal with SV550 122mm). I can't get it to focus at the lower MM range. There is plenty of range left in my focuser, it just is not sharp when dialed in. I'm new to this though, so maybe I'm doing something wrong. And yes, it is on the stiff side and hard to turn.
Probobly just bad seeing at the higher powers.
Hello im new to astronomy and just got my Bresser Telescope AC 60/700 for Christmas. Just want to upgrade my 4mm and 20mm eyepiece. I wish to explore the planets and maybe deep space. Will this be suitable for me or do you suggest something else ? Thanks :)
First of all congrats on the new scope! that is very similar to my first scope about 25 years ago. The eyepiece will provide a good magnification range for the planets. With a 60mm you will not really be able to go above ~125x. So this eyepiece is a bit too much power for the scope, but the nice thing about eyepieces is that when you get a quality one it will last a lifetime. That way when your ready to upgrade scopes your covered!
@@AVTAstro Thank You for your reply and keep it up with your videos they are very informative and helpful 😊😊
Hey Vlad! I hope you are doing OK? I know you cannot see C-80 the Omega Centauri Globular Cluster up there, but can you catch C-77 the colliding Galaxy since it's 5° closer to the Equator from May to July? Here is a photo taken with a Celestron 9.25" SCT*. I could see it with my new telescope. So I told my son I'd like an Astro Tech Apo 102ED or 4 inch refractor scope for Father's Day/birthday (only 4 days apart and I'm turning 70), but my son only remembered I wanted a 4 inch APO and didn't buy me the A-T 102ED Doublet, but bought me the Explore Scientific 100 F/7 Carbon Fiber FCD102 ED Triplet Refractor instead! It also came with the 99% 2" dielectric diagonal so I didn't have to buy one. That saved me a hunk of money.
For the first week it was cloudy and rainy here in the Chihuahuan Desert, but it cleared up and Sunday-Monday it was perfect, from 2300 hours to 0400 hours seeing conditions were perfect, I cranked up the power to 290x to 310x with the lens from an Omni 1.25 Barlow and Saturn was about as good as I've ever seen it. I could've been looking through a 6" it was that good, but I've never had a triplet APO before either.
Vlad, have you ever checked out the Baader Hyperion eyepieces? I ask because I'm looking at the 13mm which is 23mm when it's a 2" , but in a 1.25" it is 13mm, then using its spacers it can be 9mm or 8mm focal length. So my magnification can run from 54x to 66x to 89x and in 2" its 32x magnification all from one eyepiece.
*Centaurus_A#/media/File:Centaurus_a_Mark_Johnston.jpg
Congrats on the new APO!!! Sorry I don't have any experience with the Hyperion.
Don't buy into hyperion hype. When used at 23mm it will have horrible edges in an f7 scope. It is just an erfle at that point, and they are just Chinese clones of vixen lvw, but not as good.
People seem to think baader hyperions are some Uber German zeiss eyepieces, but they are chinese orion stratus eyepieces with baaders modular system and supposed phantom coatings.
With a triplet apo, you should buy a nicer eyepiece, a real LVW or pentax XW, or nagler type 6
I was wondering about that zoom, 3 to 8mm is powerful zoom, but I really don't need it. In my Maksutov I wouldn't use it and for my 150mm f-5 Newtonian I already bought my EPs down to 3.2 ED @234x which is as far as I take it. Then when the Jet Stream is calm about 5 nights a year I'll boost it to 300x with a lens from a Celestron Barlow since the Tele Vue screws off, but doesn't fit anything else.
"Mars going on up there." I've been checking it out while it's in opposition, won't come as close for two years so observe it while you can.
I have that Baader 6mm Ortho and from what I read about Baader's Ortho eyepieces they use a Zeiss construction whatever that means, but mine works great for splitting stars without that spiky look on smaller stars next to bigger stars. It does have a short eye relief though.
Zeiss construction just means that it's designed like the Zeiss Abbe Orthoscopic eyepieces, which have a kinda legendary performance especially with planetary observing. I don't own any, but from what I've read they have very good surface polishing on the glass with great coatings. That's probably why you see very little light scatter from yours.
@@Astro_Ape Makes sense. I have the Baader 18mm and love it for planetary with the Tele Vue 2x Barlow, works well. Just by itself it is a great Lunar EP.
Well Vlad I just got my first telescope a couple of weeks ago after 70 years! It’s tough on a fixed income, but had to do “something”!!! Found a deal on a Gskyer 130 cheap and knew from the getgo I had to get the eyepieces upgraded, before it arrived. So after all these years of watching you and others, I decided , with my limited budget, to go with the SvBony 7.1x26.2 zoom with their 2x barlow. While waiting for the new eyepieces to get here from China I realized looking through the 25mm included eyepiece at some point I’m going to have to add a wide view eyepiece. 25mm out of 650 fl is not optimal. Also the included finder scope might as well go to the garbage. Now! I need your recommendations. What do ya think?
First off, congratulations on getting your first scope!!
Your Gskyer is a reflector on a manual EQ mount, I think? If so, it's what us amateur astronomers call a "fast" scope as it's f-ratio is around f/5. F ratio is basically the relationship between your scopes length and it's width (f ratio= focal length ÷ aperture). That means the light coming into the scope is "bent" by the primary mirror at a relatively sharp angle in a fairly short length tube. Because of this, the eyepieces have to work really hard to correct the stretched out image and smooth it out into a pretty flat image, a lot harder than they would in a "slower" telescope, like a really long refractor (typically f/6 is the middle ground, f/7 and up are slow while f/5 and below are fast).
All that means is that you may have to spend a little bit more and get a little bit better quality eyepiece in order to get the good satisfactory views you're look for.
What price range are you looking to spend on this eyepiece?? And is your telescope a 1¼" only?? AstroTech Paradigms are recognised as good budget EPs within our hobby although I've never tried them. Plössl from any decent brand would also work well. If you're able to spend a little bit more, an Explore Scientific 24mm 68° eyepiece is an excellent choice to get the maximum FOV in a 1¼" focuser. I got mine used from the CloudyNights classifieds for about $150.....
And speaking of buying used, that's definitely something you should consider, especially if your budgets tight. If you do buy used stick with websites that are amateur astronomy specific, it'll make you're experience a be a billion times better compared to eBay/similar. I use AstroMart (cost $15/year) & CloudyNights (free & I highly recommend). I've bought 95% of my EP's used because that's the only way I can afford quality optics lol. I've saved a ton of money buying used APM, Baader, and Explore Scientific eyepieces and in many cases I wouldn't have been able to afford them otherwise.
Anyway, hopefully Vlad will chime in with his opinion. He's wayyy more experienced then I am in this hobby.
Clear skies buddy!!
-AstroApe
aka Matthew
@@Astro_Ape , my budget won’t let me do anything else at the moment regrettably. This is bye no means what I wanted but I had to settle as I got the scope and the upgraded lenses for under $300. All on PayPal so I can pay it off in 6 months. Just wait until you retire!!! Some things you just have to keep dreaming about 😂
@@kmichaelp4508 I'm 32 with no kids, no wife, and with minimal bills lol... I'm sure if any 1 of those 3 things change then I'll probably be kissing goodbye to my astronomy gear.
It's currently my only serious hobby tho, so I do spend what I consider a lot of money on it. But I work as a lowly house painter in the mountains of North Carolina, so it doesn't take much money for it to become a lot in my mind lol.
Another good thing about buy used gear is that a lot of the depreciation in value from brand new happens to the original owner. So about the only cost I'll have in my gear is shipping cost, since I have the ability to sell it for damn near exactly what I paid for it (as long as my clumsy self can take care of it)
@@Astro_Ape , hahaha. There is no lowly house painter. I started off my working career as one but in the N Georgia hills. But I did recover!😂 Infact.. my wife considered me an asset until about 10 years ago. Now? Not so much. I don’t have what it takes for painting anymore. Shake shake shake. Can you name that tune?😂
You know honestly if its budget eyepieces your looking for in the wide range I don't have too much experience with this. I do have a Celestron 2" 26mm that might interest you. Shoot me an email. info@avt-astro.com
I’m on the fence about buying myself one. Won’t the stiffness get easier with use?
I'd guess it would with time. I've got a Apertura 9-27mm that's basically a rebranded SvBony, both made by the same company. It started out slightly stiff but has gotten easier with use. It's a different design than the 3-8mm SvBony but I'd wager all their EPs are made by the same company so the tolerances may be similar.
Something I'd worry about would be it getting stiffer in cold weather. Lots of zooms suffer from that. I've never had my 9-27 out in really cold weather but my Baader MkIV does great in the cold but it was purposely designed to be since the MkIII suffered from cold weather lockup.
If it helps I have the 7-21 mm version of svbony zoom eyepiece, the stiffness of the mechanism hasn't gotten better with use (although i've only used it off and on for 4 months now). What I like about it is that it offers a good budget version of the baader zoom. The mechanics are not that nice but optically in my opinion its good for the money
So I want to clarify that I had the eyepiece out for evaluation in near freezing temperatures. Even in this condition the zoom mechanism is smooth! The issue is the click stops at the mm increments. I do hope that it will get less "clicked in" into the mm increments with time!
@@Astro_ApeSvBONY appears to have items from a few different manufacturers. Just like astromania, they just buy from multiple vendors who have the best deal on a certain type of accesory.
Any special optics in that WO 132?
Hey, nop it's just a standard FLP-53 triplet. This is a good one though and I'm looking forward to directly comparing it to my Astrophysics 130GT.
@@AVTAstro that wo might be standard glass but that is not a standard focuser lol
It sure is not. Funny you should bring the focuser up. Its the main reason I bought the scope. That Feather Touch 3.5" is the best of the best. I got the scope to FINALY be able to use my Explore Scientific 3" 30mm 100* eyepiece. A few years ago I had the "bright" idea of selling my TEC 140(that had the same focuser) and have not had a scope that can support the eyepiece.
@@AVTAstro That is one big eyepiece. I would like to get a rather large maybe 5 inch high quality refractor with high quality components. Been thinking about the 130 Stellarvue to fit that bill. But I an't buying any 3 inch eyepieces lol!
lol, yeah the 3" is certainly for "special" people like me;)
Too bad you didnt have the nagler.zoom to compare.
And radian was replaced by delite, delos is more like a long eye relief ethos scaled back to 72, which was later scaled back to 62 for the delite which even looks like the radian but with a delos style adjustable eye cup rather than the clickstop radian eye guard.
I was never a fan of the radian, I had a couple for a while. The original burgess/tmb planetary gave pretty much the same view for $50-100 when they first came out, and current ones and their countless rebrands are way cheaper.
The build quality on the radian was better and there was that green letter pride of ownership part, but I found them highly over rated
Yeah I wish I had the Nagler zoom to compare to. I have owned one years ago but sold it as at the time did not use it enough.
Vlad, the name is pronounced S-V-Bony.
Yeah I figured it was wrong. The company bosses have not corrected me yet so I figure it's not too bad😋😅🤣
Or maybe Svuhh-bony. Nobody knows for sure
So china finally copied the nagler zoom
Christmas, a celebration of light pollution
Thank you for your review!Welcome to evaluate more if have the chance! We recently launched a test program for all interested enthusiasts, and you are welcome to participate!
Thanks, Svbony team!