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Considering all the help I got choosing my widefield refractor, the SvBony sv503, I thought it was only fair that I would share my thoughts now that I’ve had 5-6 sessions with it. Hopefully it might help someone else make their own decision for or against.
I have been impressed by the build of the OTA. As far as I can tell, the whole OTA is either metal or glass which feels like quality.
The focuser has no slop with 1.25’’ diagonal and eyepieces (mine weigh about 400g combined). The rack and pinion focuser is butter smooth with both coarse and fine grained wheels. It is also rotatable 360 degrees which was a factor in my decision considering I’m using an Explore Scientific Twilight I which requires side-mounting. The focuser gets out of the way when observing which is really what a focuser should aspire to do.
The retractable dew shield follows suit by being tight enough to hold without being too hard to pull in or stow away. As a note, the cap seems to have been improved from reviews I’ve read as it isn’t a screw in model but simply slides in and out. Again, the fit feels right.
When it comes to optics, I clearly am no expert. I can see chromatic aberration but am not bothered by it. Using my X-Cel Lx 5mm for 143x, the moon looked bright and sharp. Considering the seeing was around 4 out of 5, I tried to Barlow a 7mm X-Cel Lx for 205x, but much preferred the view with the 5mm as the slight gain in visible features was unfortunately offset by the loss of light.
Moving on to Jupiter on the same night, I found the view in the 7mm and 9mm more pleasing at 102x and 80x respectively rather than in the 5mm. I could see 5 to 6 cloud bands though for some of them only the western side was visible.
As for DSOs, the Pleiades just fit in the 2.1° fov of the 25mm X-Cel Lx at 29x . I can’t wait to get a 2’’ diagonal to get a wider fov as it would show some of the darker surroundings and better frame the view. The Carina Nebula, however, is a fantastic fit for that fov and is bright enough across the whole field to show nebulosity without filter (bortle 3 or 4 skies). So is M42 in Orion.
As for open clusters, I’ve so far enjoyed the low power view and how it frames NGC 3532 and the Southern Pleiades (IC2602) though NGC 3532 could have done with a wider fov. Other open clusters such as NGC 3766 and 3114 worked really well at medium to high power.
Whilst I’m useless at star testing, the above views all looked good and gave me confidence that the optics are good for an f/7 achromat.
Finally, my mount pairing on an Explore Scientific Twilight I works very well for visual. It was easy to balance and once I realised I could just leave the azimuth axis unlocked became another piece of equipment that I could just forget about whilst I get lost into the stars. The pairing handled about 10 km/h wind at 143x though became too unstable at 200x.
All in all, I am very happy with this telescope so it’s going to be a mainstay for me. Now I only need to work out whether I keep my C5 which has sharp optics but can’t really compete with the refractor’s fov.
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