Konus Vista-80s

[dayglowill]

I had planned to pick up a Sky-Watcher ST80 on a table top eq1 mount this month. After doing

the maths though I realised that the price of £99.00, although pretty cheap, was still just

a little more than I could afford.

While looking at Park Cameras' web site I realised that the Motormax 90 (that I bought last month) wasn't the only Konus telescope that had been reduced to "half price" (more like 2/3rds of what others are

really selling them for). Other Konus items were tucked away in the Clearance section of the

site, including the Konus Vista 80 Spot for £59.99. A little investigation confirmed that

this is the Konus version of the Synta ST80, with a tabletop tripod and a 45° diagonal.

Although a price difference of £39.01 may not seem a lot, it made the difference for me.

So what sort of a scope do you get for sixty quid? Opening up the box I found the usual

collection of components well packed in white boxes. The tube is painted in Konus' current

dark blue colour and appears to be aluminium with a plastic dew shield, which looks a little

shorter than the one fitted to the Sky-Watcher and Orion versions, and a metal focuser. One

thing I hadn't realised until after I bought the Vista was that the Sky-Watcher table top

ST80 comes with a plastic focuser. Attached to the bottom of the tube is a standard

photographic tripod bush. Finder attachment is of the 2 screw type.

The 45° erecting diagonal is metal and seems to be of decent quality. The eyepieces are

Konus' usual 10mm and 17mm plossls which are cheaply made but work well enough. Less

satisfactory are the rubbish green "moon" filter and the 5x24 finder which is made out of

nasty plastic and wouldn't be out of place on a toy, it also gives an upside down image,

which on what is being sold as a spotting scope is particularly poor, I have even attempted

to use this.

The table top tripod is aluminium and plastic and even has alt-az slow motion controls.

Although very light weight it is less unstable than I expected with the Vista on board. It

seems better suited to holding light spotting scopes and binoculars, in fact David Hinds

sell what appears to be the same tripod for exactly this use (#93604 Tabletop Tripod

£14.00).

Unfortunately I've been stuck at home with a kidney infection since I bought this scope so I

have only used it for 3 very brief observing sessions. The good news is that this scope is

ideal for short sessions. The scope was fitted with a Baader Sky Surfer III red dot sight,

they work well together. I've used it mounted on both a photographic tripod, which was a

little wobbly but usable, and on my aluminium astro tripod and TS-AZ mount. Eyepieces used

were a Celestron X-Cel 10mm (40x), Skywatcher LER 15mm (26.6x), and Meade Series 4000 26mm

(15.4x), and I used both the supplied 45° erecting diagonal and an Antares 90° economy

diagonal.

Being a short fast scope (80mm aperture 400mm focal length f/5) the Moon through this scope

is so bright that looking at it is almost painful, but the view is nice and clear, though a

good deal of chromatic abberation is visible at the edge of the disc. Mars showed as a small

orange disc with no apparent surface detail.

Comet Holmes showed up nicely, as did M45 the Pleiades, in fact I thought I could even

detect a little nebulosity. M42 the Orion Nebula was clearly visible but with no colour.

The best thing with this scope was the sheer number of stars visible with it pointed at the

milky way, not a surprise with a rich field refractor but beautiful to see.

All in all at £59.99 the Konus represents a great way to pick up a ST80 OTA cheap, at the

time of writing Park Cameras appear to have 6 left at this price. If you don't already have

one you will probably want to budget for a star diagonal, and you will definitely want a

better finder, though with a low enough magnification eyepiece you might not need a finder

at all. Unless you have a very solid table in the garden the supplied tripod is unlikely to

be of much use for astronomy.

Finally I will mention again that, although I have been happy with both the Konus scopes I

have been able to buy at reduced prices recently, Konus do seem to have a mixed reputation.

All the best,

Will.

[Neon]

Nice review there Will. That scope's a little cutie and sounds like you got a pretty good deal for your money. Might also be a handy travel scope on a budget and I guess if the mood took you it'd also make a nice guidescope. Shame that you couldn't just buy the OTA only as some of the accessories seem rather poor.

Thanks for the review and I hope the kidney infection clears up soon.

[John]

Thanks for sharing your views on the Vista-80 Will. I think these 80mm scopes are an extremely useful addition to anyones kit and perform suprisingly well.

I used to have the same scope but mine was branded with the dreaded "Tasco" label :shock: It performed just as well as the Skywatcher ones of course and I was thrilled when I managed to detect part of the Veil Nebula, using a UHS-C filter, with it.

Your review has made me want one again

John

[dayglowill]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Shame that you couldn't just buy the OTA only as some of the accessories seem rather poor.

For 60 quid I took the view that I was buying an OTA and if any of the other bits turned out to be any good that was a bonus. I do wonder if the poor choice of accessories is part of the reason for Konus' iffy reputation. it does seem a shame to make scopes that, are based on my experience, pretty decent and spoil the package by including some inadequate accessories.

The frustrating thing about this is that some of the components aren't rubbish, both the table top tripod with the Vista and the EQ-1 mount that came with the Motormax 90 are of reasonable quality, they are just a poor match for the scopes they were supplied with :nono:.

I may not mind mixing and matching components, but do have a little past experience of astronomy and enjoy researching things before buying them. I suspect a complete beginner could be completely put off if they bought one of Konus' packages. To be fair other companies seem to be guilty of the same thing sometimes.

Still if Konus got it right then Park Cameras probably wouldn't have had to reduce their prices so drastically and I wouldn't have been able to get a couple of good deals. I really am delighted with the Vista and am sure that it will be a "keeper" .

Regards,

Will.