SVBONY, Any good? Generic equipment discussions · William Sweeney · ... · 28 · 817 · 7

Hello, William. To add to the conversation here, the very first telescope I bought for astrophotography was SVBONY's SV503 102ED and the specially made SV193 0.8x reducer/flattener. I think in general, the scope was built like a tank, I feel like if I accidentally kicked it, I would break my toe or something and the scope would be unscathed. Optics wise, there was quite a bit to be desired. For a beginner to an intermediate astrophotographer, it's a fantastic platform to start from as you get great build quality and decent optics for a really good price.

However, to build on my point about the optics, my particular copy had some things going on. The SV503 is SVBONY's achromatic doublet design branch so chromatic aberration is to be expected. What I did like about mine is even though it had chromatic aberration, it could focus the green and red light to almost the exact same point. That being said, the FPL-51 glass in the optics is an Achilles heel for the scope. While it could focus red and green light really well, the blue bloat halos were bad, they weren't as bad as some photos I've seen from other SV503 copies but mine certainly wasn't one of the better ones. The other thing about my copy is that without the reducer installed, all of my stars were uniformly oblong in the exact same way across the entire field regardless of how good my tracking was. I know my copy had pinched optics for sure, so I don't know if that was related to collimation or the pinched optics issue. The reducer they supplied to me had a loose lens cell so it rattled if you shook it around.

I just sold my SV503 today, I bought an Apertura Carbonstar 6" Ritchey-Chretien back in September to upgrade from the 503 since the large 102 mm aperture it had gave me aperture fever. I ended up liking my RC6 so much that the 503 just sat for months so I decided selling it would be best.

That being said, I do have experience with some other products of theirs. For one, I have owned 6 of their filters. A UV/IR cut filter, the SV220, the 5nm SV227 SHO set, and a Near Infrared filter. The SV220, a 7 nm dual narrowband filter, is killer value. It smashes the competition from Optolong in my opinion. It had relatively controlled halos in Oiii, which I didn't encounter all that often in my year of using it. The 5 nm SV227 SHO set is also incredibly good for the money in my use of them since the start of the year. I believe these ones are more gear lottery dependent as there seems to be large variations from set to set. My particular set performs exceptionally well in my opinion, with only the Oiii filter showing even slight signs of halos on the very brightest of stars. The bandpasses on mine do seem to be what is claimed, if only very slightly wider. The quality of the infrared filter is up in the air for me as I am not sure what the competition holds as far as halo control, sharpness, all that. All I know is that it does what it says, but the AR coatings may be lacking.

The last 2 things I have used from them that I keep going back to are a 7 to 21 mm zoom eyepiece I bought from them. It is crazy sharp through most of the magnification range, with visuals maybe starting to break down by the 9 mm mark. It has no chromatic aberration or astigmatism or coma to speak of either. The final piece of equipment is a dielectric 90 degree diagonal that they offer which does have very high reflectivity and I am confident to say their 99% reflectivity claim is accurate. It works very well, good for the money.

TLDR; Very solid build quality for the money, often fantastic performance. Their optics leave some to be desired, but they do the job. The anti reflection coatings are lacking in most cases as well. It was often easy to get halos on stars without a filter installed.

PS: I have heard of variable results and differing opinions on the quality of the SV550 apochromatic triplet offerings by SVBONY. Some folks have said their optics are indeed apochromatic, while others have still had chromatic aberration, with the images they shared having very subtle blue bloat in the worst of cases. Also, I can't speak 100% to the quality of their cameras because I haven't owned one myself, but I have heard that most of their camera offerings are subpar and have major problems when compared to the fierce competition from ZWO, Player One Astronomy, QHYCCD, and Touptek.

I think if SVBONY invested more in their optics testing, QC, and if they used higher quality glass in their refractors, they would be unbeatable for the money in the vast majority of cases.

I was super excited for the sv555, ended up being pretty disappointed. The optics were not up to my expectations. And I am not what I would consider an optics expert.