SVBONY SV503 Portable Telescope Tube, 70ED F6 Extra Low Dispersion Optical Tube, Micro-Reduction Rap Focuser, for Astrophotography and Visul Astronomy

I purchased the SVBONY SV503 70ED refractor telescope last summer, but due to weather (two hurricanes!) I was unable to try it out until late November. It performed beautifully! The first few targets were the Pleiades, Andromeda, and the North American Nebula. All came out fantastic. The FPL51 glass in the objective lens approaches the performance of APO scopes that are over twice the price. The dual-speed focuser is super smooth and it's easy to get perfect focus with a Bahtanov mask. The draw tube length of 90mm offers a wide range of distances for achieving focus with various spacers, filters, or the reducer. It also has markings (down to the millimeter) on the side of the draw tube to help get the focus back after making changes to the optical chain. If you have recorded the distance mark from a previous setup, going back to that setup is much easier to get the focus close, so that the time needed when doing that kind of a change is greatly reduced. The extendable dew shield keeps out dew and stray light and stays in place without getting stuck. Overall, the quality of the build is excellent. I also purchased the 0.8x reducer for this scope's bigger brother, the SV503 80ED and it works great with this 70mm f/6 to reduce it down to an f/4.8 focal ratio for a slightly wider field of view. I recommend the reducer with this scope. It is essential if you wish to capture all of M-31 (Andromeda) or M-45 (The Pleiades) in a single frame. As far as optical quality, images are sharp and bright. Even though it's not an APO, I didn't notice any significant blue or purple halo's around bright stars. They weren't completely eliminated, but the very minor ones that did show up were hardly visible or were easily removed via processing. I highly recommend this telescope for astrophotography.

Peek into the home of any advanced amateur astronomer and you’ll be surprised not only at the number of telescopes but that there will almost always be an 80mm telescope and you might be more surprised that it is the most used. Every telescope has its advantages and the 80mm is a perfect size for taking wide area images of the night sky. Many objects in the sky are actually quite large and require a small telescope to image, see the image of the North American Nebula attached. An 80mm is also the perfect “Grab and Go” telescope for when you want a quick view of something but don’t want to setup the “big” telescope. Every astronomer has a small telescope they can use on a tripod when they want a quick look at something.I’ve had this telescope a little over a week now and I’m quite impressed. If you are just starting out this is a telescope you can grow into and not out of. It is light weight, only 6.3 pounds, and will be at home on a tripod as on a telescope mount.For the more advanced amateur, this telescope is an astrophotographer’s dream! The image below is of the North American Nebula and though you can see some coma near the corners, it has over a degree of tack sharp star images. The image of the Galaxy M101 was taken a few nights later with a HoTech SCA Field Flattener and has over a degree and a half of coma free area. These were taken with a cooled IMX294 camera and is a stack of 70 two minute exposures stacked and processed in PixInsight. It was taken from a light polluted suburb of Dallas during full moon, the North American Nebula was with an Optolong l-eNhance filter and shows what can be done with a good telescope even from a big city. For those just starting out getting an image this good can take some time.The image of the Moon is a composite made from two images taken with the SvBony SV305 camera then stitched together for the full image. It created some excitement on Facebook as it shows a lot of detail you would not expect from a telescope of this size. The image of Venus was also taken with the SV305 camera. The third image of the solar prominence was taken with a 4x Powermate Barlow, a Daystar Quark Hydrogen-Alpha filter and a QHY174GPS camera. It was a composite of two images, one of the prominence and the other of the sun’s surface. The camera was monochrome so color was added. This telescope is a solar and lunar imaging machine! WARNING: Do not use to view the sun without proper filtering as permanent damage can occur to your eyes or equipment!Who should get this telescope? Those in astrophotography who need something with a wider field of view, people wanting to view the sun (be sure to use an approved solar filter) and the moon. You can also see star clusters, nebula and some larger, brighter galaxies. You can certainly view the planets through this telescope, but the short focal length makes it better for wide field objects. If you are a beginner and are looking for a good telescope that you can use later for astrophotography then this is a great scope to start as you will not outgrow it.You should note that the telescope only comes as an Optical Tube Assembly, you do not receive a star diagonal, eyepiece or finder. That is typical of high end astrophotography telescopes. If you are just beginning you will need a SVBONY 2 inches 90 Deg Dielectric Mirror Diagonal, a set of eyepieces, a red dot finder and base, and a large tripod or telescope mount (iOptron SkyGuider pro, iOptron CEM40 or Celestron VX mount for example). I would recommend also buying a 2” extension tube such as the Orion 5124 2-Inch Telescope Eyepiece Extension Tube or the Explore Scientific Rack and Pinion Focuser 2" Extension Tube - ESRPEXT2 if you want to do astrophotography.I found only one minor complaint and that is the focuser. Unlike the description, it is not a Crawford style, but a rack and pinion, the latter being the standard for most telescopes. That isn’t a big deal, but for astrophotography a Crawford is preferred. The focus is a bit spongy, but still quite usable. I was able to add a motorized focuser and, while there was some image shift while focusing (as is usual with all rack and pinion focusers), it was still easy to reach a good focus. The image of the North American Nebula was focused by hand. Like almost all astrophotography refractors, an extension tube (mentioned earlier) is needed when using a camera. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice to have it included.I was able to compare this telescope to another 80mm ED f/6 scope from another company that costs twice as much. The SV503 was as good if not better in almost every respect. The image in the SV503 was brighter, even though it is an f/7 and the other scope was an f/6. The only reason might be that the other scope has three lens elements while the SV503 has two and that resulted in more light being absorbed. Still, it was surprising. Both telescopes had about 1.1 degrees of coma free field of view. The SV503 was lighter than the other but was a bit longer. Both telescopes had a way to rotate the focuser to allow for better framing with a camera, but the SV503 was much smoother and had a better locking mechanism than the other telescope. Both had rack and pinion focusers and both had similar focusing characteristics. Between the two the SV503 was the clear winner even without the cost differential.Pros:1. Incredible price, about half what other 80mm ED telescopes sell for2. Perfect for beginners and advanced amateurs alike3. Bright, wide images, superb telescope for astrophotography4. Tack sharp over 1.1 degree, even more with a field flattener5. Focuser rotation is super smoothCons:1. It is listed in the description as a Crawford focuser, but it is Rack and Pinion. It still works quite well.2. Focus extension tube not included. Not a big problem.Should you buy this telescope? Definitely! In fact, the friend I had help with the image of the North American Nebula and M101 likes it so much he buying one for himself.

If you are short on funds and eager to get into Astro this isn’t a bad choice for a starter scope. There is some chromatic aberration and the stars at the edge of the frame get pretty distorted too. I just saw the current price and it has gone way up like everything so there may be better options out there now. I’m attaching a shot that was taken with a Nikon D3200, and a skywatcher star adventurer gti. About an hour of exposure time and processed into this image.

I purchased the SV503 80ED in 2024 when it was on sale along with a .8 focal reducer/flattener. The build quality of the SV503 80ED is superb! So much so I rate it higher than the build quality of a $1700 75mm refractor I recently purchased from a reputable online astronomy equipment store.The SV503 80ED with .8 focal reducer/flattener provides nice tight round stars across the field of view of an ASI585MC Pro. It however does suffer from pretty bad blue/violet chromatic abberation on brighter stars. I did purchase the SV231 filter to combat the chromatic abberation problem. I've only tried it once in line with an Antlia Quad-Band filter on the Horsehead Nebula (attached). Integration time was short that night and I pushed post processing a bit too hard and it's not the best representation of what this scope can do. But I did attach other photos as well. Some post processing of the images are better than others.All in all this is a great scope for the money and I'd recommend it to anyone looking to take their first step into astrophotography. Of course with a disclaimer about the chromatic abberation if using a color camera. I have been so impressed with the SV503 80ED I have been seriously contemplating getting the SV550 122mm APO.I'll continue using the SV503 80ED for many years to come as I am sure how well it's built, it going to last a long time.

Love this scope! Very well made. 2 speed focuser is great. Image quality is excellent, really beyond expectations. Very sharp, no discernable chromatic abberation.