Steven

May 01, 2023

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Nice small guidescope Very good for it's price

Vimal Joshi

Mar 08, 2026

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Best Guide Scope for the Price under 10k.Best Guide Scope for the Price under 10k. Item was in excellent Brand-new condition. And this guide cam is working like a charm. getting a guiding below 0.4 to 0.7 most of the time. Attaching the screen shot of Guiding graph from a Bortle 5-6 Sky from Haldwani, Uttarakhand.

Tory Heckrotte

Mar 07, 2023

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Little thing works well! Works great with the sv305 pro and sv503 80mm. Just don't forget to loosen the red ring to adjust the focus! Everything I've gotten from SVBONY has been great. Would definitely recommend.

Mntdr

Mar 28, 2025

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Good Choice Good quality used for guide scope and it did what it was supposed to do.

Dillon cool

Mar 12, 2025

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Great Really easy to focus, and works really well. For the price, it is a great buy. I have attached an image I took using it (as a guider)

Jonathan Melendy

Jun 21, 2021

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Clean, no nonsense design. No need for extension tubes, the body of the scope. I put in a Celestron 40mm ELux eyepiece and simply unscrewed the body about an inch. Instant finder scope! Crystal clear optics.

Rolando F

Jul 23, 2024

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Best finder for the price. Great quality So far so good, It had a glitch but after I contacted Svbony customer services and Kelly helped me to troubleshoot and guide me to set it up everything is great now. Thanks Svbony and specially Kelly the representative.

CMiskie

Jul 13, 2022

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Great little scope. It is always hard to find focus, it took me about an hour one clear night. It seems the sensors should be about 30ish mm more. I attached an Orion 1.25" extender, fully inserted my 120mini and with about 10mm more my stars were sharp points. It took me a minute to figure out how to use the focus tube extension but once it was in the rings, turning the red ring and adding some extension was easy.

Robert McDaid

Jan 31, 2025

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Excellent Guide Scope at a fraction of the cost of Mainstream Brands SVBONY gear is quickly raising up the ranks in Astro/Optical Accessories. The Guide Scope is Branded by SVBONY but available under a variety of Brand Names World-Wide, sometimes at twice the price from companies that have a Bigger Brand name. The Scope works well and does a good job when tracking, especially when paired with ZWO cams. For the price, Highly recommended

Matthew Robinson

Feb 17, 2026

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Does the job. Focus was easy. Decent quality for a guide scope. Light weight. Good price. If this is your first guide scope - you can’t go wrong here.

new07

Dec 27, 2021

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

tight hex screws for the rings the product build is good and tested it during day to get the focus working before trying it out at night. didn't know and realized that the hex screws were tight on the ring base. therefore i couldn't get the guide scope inside the ring. it took lot of effort and in doing so got scratches from those screws. then i realized i had to loosen them then put the guide scope in. there's no manual for this or any kind of note stating such arrangement. now my guide scope looks ugly as a result of scratches. so please make a note of hex screws being tight and not let the user figure it out on their own. this is silly. hoping the scope works fine at night. *Update: svbony customer service was able help out with this and sent an another one. This time everything worked fine. no issues. weather hasn't been clear but once it clear. should be good to go. glad they were able to help out. will keep them in mind for future.

Kelly

Dec 20, 2022

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Good little scope! Good little scope! Clear glass! Mounting seems solid. Focusing is good and easy with my Asi cameras. Focus issues with a 90° diagonal and eyepieces. I think the focal point of this is 25-26mm from what I read in the Q&A in this listing. All of my eyepieces would focus when placed in the SV165. However I wanted to use a diagonal and an eyepiece at times. The diagonal pushed the eyepieces back too far. I may remove the nose piece from one of them and try again. Next, for those of you who want to try and align this with your main scope I have a possible solution. I used a bit of painters tape to shim the wedge in the mount. This helped me get real close. This should keep both frames centered on each other. Clear skies.

Edmunds Hill Apiary

Aug 31, 2025

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

OK ... works good Glad I bought it A nice finder/guidescope optical tube assembly. Synta/Vixen-like dovetail mount has a ¼"x20tpi threaded socket, so a reasonable range of mounting possibilities. Good sharpness and contrast; the focusing mechanism (threaded draw tube with locking ring) is adequate even if not luxurious (and I am pretty picky about such). The 3cm aperture is a little weak for guiding purposes (with a guiding camera, not included), but has worked for direct guiding against all of the Messier objects. For off-bore positioning, a leveling mount (I use a Leofoto LB38) is necessary.

Rehon

Apr 04, 2025

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Best starter guide scope Works just as well as $200 guide scopes, and for only 50 bucks, it’s definitely worth it. I can get guiding under 1 arc-second. Focusing can be tricky, but once it’s dialed in it performs perfectly. (I did 3-D print a due shield for it but it’s not needed.)

Tuesday Martin

Apr 26, 2021

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

Perfect little guide scope! Perfect little guide scope for my 72mm telescope. Very easy to use and find focus, and locks in focus nicely. Really shows off it's brightness when paired with the ASI 120mm guide camera and accuracy with PHD2. The mount is sturdy and holds the scope securely. Great quality in this price point.

Stuart Riley

Apr 01, 2024

SV165 30mm F4 Mini Guide Scope for Astrophotography

A telescope finder is essential, but it doesn’t have to be massive This finder is meant for small telescopes used for astronomy photography. It’s compact enough that you don’t notice the weight, but provides plenty of field of view for find or tracking celestial objects. Can be used visually with an eyepiece or diagonal and eyepiece for viewing objects terrestrial or celestial objects. It is well built and made with quality metal parts that Will not break like plastic ones. It’s also not expensive for the use and build quality given the price. 👏

Mum2

Mar 07, 2026

Svbony SV165 Mini Guide Scope 40mm for Deep Sky

Does the job Christmas present, recipient happy with the item. Does the job. Arrived well packaged and earlier than stated

David James

Jun 13, 2025

Svbony SV165 Mini Guide Scope 40mm for Deep Sky

I use it as an electronic finder Bought the 40mm variant. Light weight like a finder. Good clear multi coated objective lens. Lots of focus (length) adjustability. The base fits in a standard Synta finder shoe and has three point adjustment so it can be aligned with the optical axis of the main scope. I use this little guide scope with an astro camera to plate solve to align my mount with the stars in the sky an electronic finder if you will. I like Svbony products. They are affordably priced, good build quality and durable performance. I would recommend.

G-G

Aug 01, 2025

Svbony SV165 Mini Guide Scope 40mm for Deep Sky

Good little guide scope. Works as expected. An improvement over my old 30mm ZWO scope. Plenty good for focal lengths less than 700mm The scope is held by six rotating screws. It must be accurately aligned before use or your guiding will be terrible. This is normal. Just a warning for anyone new to this hobby.

Dy

Apr 03, 2024

Svbony SV165 Mini Guide Scope 40mm for Deep Sky

Exactly what I wanted I got a camera, and could only get partial moon views through it when using my Mak, or even a 100 APO only got a portion of it. Trying extenders cost me focus and quality, so I thought I would try using a guide scope for the camera. It works GREAT! The moon is out of my view now, but the "mountain test" I do shows I will be able to get the whole moon in a very nice view with the camera/guide scope setup. Plus, I can use my eyepiece at the same time. Sweeeeeet. Update: I ordered a 12.5 reticle eyepiece so that I don't have to switch from my finder scope to the 'camera scope'. Works like a CHARM, I just swap the eyepiece for the camera when I'm ready to shoot. Helical focuser has a wide range and works great for both applications.