Took delivery on Tuesday, and there was sufficient break in Sydney's crook weather last night to have a quick session before the clouds rolled in again.
The scope is a 90mm FPL53 triplet apo, using a carbon fibre tube with a sliding dew shield. The focuser is Stellarvue's own 2.5" dual speed rack and pinion design with 2" and 1.25" adapters, and is beautifully smooth in operation. The 2" adapter screws into the drawtube, and for photography, Stellarvue's field flattener screws into the drawtube and a DSLR will attach directly to the flattener so that the whole imaging train is screwed together for rock-solid stability.
The scope came with a nice padded soft carry case with compartments for accessories.
I started by observing Jupiter in twilight and the seeing was sporadically good, although I was observing through thin cloud at times. At 126x, quite a lot of detail was visible during moments of good seeing, with very good contrast and sharpness,and the moons were resolved as tiny disks. No chromatic abberation was evident.
Canopus was almost directly overhead, and the scope showed textbook diffraction patterns inside and outside of focus,and of course the focused image was, to me, perfect. Repeating on fainter stars gave similar results, and although I am no expert on optics, IMHO this is a VERY nice lens-as good as anything in its class I have looked through in my almost 30 years of observing.
I am very happy with this scope, its definitely a keeper and I look forward to doing some imaging with it.
Laurie
Glad you got at least a small break in the weather Laurie for a quick look .
Look forward to a more comprensive review soon , when the weather allows .
Beautiful scopes those SV's .
I am most interested in your views of this 90mm SV compared to your now sold 102mm NG .
Brian.
Last edited by brian nordstrom; 15-02-2013 at 05:04 PM.
Reason: info
Yep....looking good Laurie ...really looks the part and going by your short review.... she'll deliver many hours of delight for you.
Flash ...!!
Last night was reasonably clear, so I got to try it out some more-it really is a superb scope, Flash!.
Now I just need a ccd camera to start doing some imaging
Hi Laurie,
Nice review, it certainly sounds like a great scope, particularly given the price.
One question about your testing methodology - did you use a filter when comparing the intra and extra- focal images? Refractors, especially APOs are very tricky to star test because the different colours behave differently out of the focal plane. Your best bet is to use a green filter - I use an O3 and try to ignore the non-greens.
Cheers,
Andrew.
Hi Laurie,
Nice review, it certainly sounds like a great scope, particularly given the price.
One question about your testing methodology - did you use a filter when comparing the intra and extra- focal images? Refractors, especially APOs are very tricky to star test because the different colours behave differently out of the focal plane. Your best bet is to use a green filter - I use an O3 and try to ignore the non-greens.
Cheers,
Andrew.
I did not use a filter, Andrew. Thanks for the information and explanation-it makes sense.
Glad you got at least a small break in the weather Laurie for a quick look . 
