Optically and mechanically very well made. Very good for guide telescope with focal <900mm
A perfect product. Best quality.
I wanted a compact, lightweight finder scope with decent magnification and good light gathering. Enter the SVBONY Mini Guide Scope 30mm + Illuminated Reticle 12.5mm Plossl combo.
Assembled and set for infinity focus, it weighs 15.15 ounces (429 grams) & measures 6.5 inches long x 2.75 inches tall (16 cm x 7 cm). You get an uncorrected image: flipped upside down and left to right. That's alright. I tried adding a diagonal, but it was too long to get infinity, so I went straight through.
The combo yields a 30mm fully multicoated objective lens x 120mm focal length achromat with a dedicated 12.5mm Plossl. The illuminated double cross hair reticle is a bonus you only find on more expensive finder scopes that are bulkier & weigh a lot more.
The finder scope has f/4 light gathering capability. With the illuminated reticle 12.5mm plossl you get 9.6x magnification and 5.42° field of view. I like it much better than the red dot with 0x magnification. The plossl has a helicoid endcap to ensure you get the crosshairs in focus.
I knocked one star off the rating because the rings don't have quite enough adjustment to put me dead center with alignment on my main telescope. I'm close enough for now and will look for another set of rings. However, the short distance between rings has ruled out other mounts I've looked at thus far.
Overall, I'm pleased: met my weight goal, my finder doesn't look almost as large as my main scope, and I didn't drop a lot of cash for the features I got.
Put it on my TS60/360 to use it primarily as electronic finder scope and for plate solving. Lightweighted but solid and compact with sharp picture. Have to substract one star for the fact, that it cannot be fine aligned. One millimeter more space in the rings and a cross screw connection would improve it significantly and it could then also be used as finder scope in combination with an illuminated eyepiece and diagonal prism.
Astonishing quality for a good price. But you can only use it with a camera! If you want to use it just with bare eyes, you need extras, focus extender, focuser, eyepiece. Please Svbony tell your customers which extras to take for that use and give the links to the products in your shop! And thanks a lot that you are packing so environment-friendly without too much waste!
You really do not need any other guide scope than this little pocket rocket.
It's light, beautifully sharp optics, solidly made and being F4 it has a nice field of view.
Seriously, this little guide scope is exquisite 👌
