Svbony 8-3 zoom

[Ags]

38 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I'll be the odd one out here. I didn't get on with the Svbony 3-8 zoom eyepiece. I don't fault it optically at all and found the views to be clear and sharp. I just can't observe comfortably with relatively short eye relief and small eye lenses anymore. I think I have just got too comfortable with both of these attributes being larger. That's why I sold all my orthos and short focal length plossl's

I agree the eye relief is far too tight for me at the 3-5 mm settings, but I simply hover my eye a little higher and sacrifice the edge of the FOV. As a 60° eyepiece, the Svbony 3-8 has dreadful eye relief, but as a 45° eyepiece it has brilliant eye relief 🙂

Edited December 9, 2023 by Ags

[wookie1965]

I bought one for a vary reasonable price from bosun21 which I am very appreciative of unfortunately I have not had a chance to use it with a vengeance yet. 

Looking at the weather forecast it doesn't look like I will be out for another two weeks. 

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, Ags said:

As a 60° eyepiece, the Svbony 3-8 has dreadful eye relief, but as a 45° eyepiece it has brilliant eye relief 🙂

Good point. 👍  Mathematically, it should have about 5mm more eye relief (16mm vs 11mm) at 45° rather than 60° due to its 13mm eye lens diameter and 60° AFOV.  Of course, I measured closer to 8mm usable eye relief or slightly less at the short end of the zoom range, so figure on 11mm to 13mm of usable eye relief at a 45° AFOV.

Most folks find 12mm usable eye relief without eyeglasses to work well for them, so this makes it a comfortable replacement for short focal length Plossls and Orthos for non-eyeglass wearers willing to live with a 40° to 45° AFOV, which is reasonable for most high power observing situations.  Even folks like me with strong astigmatism can often get good enough results at tiny exit pupils without eyeglasses.

[dnl]

I've still not had chance to test on a clear dry sky but had a quick look at the local chimney pots and it looks promising apart from how long that barrel is 😕.

I've not found it to be to stiff and my  caps are loose but stay on without me thinking I need to replace them.

I do love having a 3d printer to solve these little problems 😃

[John]

5 hours ago, bosun21 said:

I'll be the odd one out here. I didn't get on with the Svbony 3-8 zoom eyepiece. I don't fault it optically at all and found the views to be clear and sharp. I just can't observe comfortably with relatively short eye relief and small eye lenses anymore. I think I have just got too comfortable with both of these attributes being larger. That's why I sold all my orthos and short focal length plossl's

I would not worry about that - I seem to be the only observer in the world who did not get on with the ES 92 degree eyepieces. Everybody else seems to think they are brilliant 🙄

 

[cajen2]

Not the only one, John. I'd have my Morpheus range over those any day (or night 😉).

[Louis D]

19 hours ago, cajen2 said:

Not the only one, John. I'd have my Morpheus range over those any day (or night 😉).

I was surprised by how claustrophobic the 14mm Morpheus felt when swapping it in between the 17mm ES-92 and 12mm ES-92.  I wouldn't have ever thought a 76 degree AFOV would feel that way until I did the swap.  However, if you never swap in a wider eyepiece, you'll never feel that way using a Morpheus.

[Ags]

I think that people naturally have different effective fields of view. We obviously don't see a dark circle at the edge of a our field of view, but there is a point at which things change from being comfortably in our field of view to being at the periphery, and I think I have a lot more periphery than many other people. So it's not surprising to me that I find my 50-degree SLVs to have a "widefield" feel, and I don't get a lot of wow from wider fields - they can be convenient but they feel like a lot of effort.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Ags

[Ratlet]

23 hours ago, dnl said:

I've still not had chance to test on a clear dry sky but had a quick look at the local chimney pots and it looks promising apart from how long that barrel is 😕.

I've not found it to be to stiff and my  caps are loose but stay on without me thinking I need to replace them.

I do love having a 3d printer to solve these little problems 😃

3D printer is great for 'unicorn parts' where it wouldn't be worth someone making loads of them but you can make one or two for yourself no bother.

[Mr Spock]

I think fields of view can be psychological. I much prefer my LVW's 65° to anything else. However, for doubles. I enjoy the 82° Nirvanas more. For planets I'm quite happy with the Orthos; I think their narrow field of view concentrates the eye on detail rather than the expanse.

[bosun21]

5 hours ago, Louis D said:

I was surprised by how claustrophobic the 14mm Morpheus felt when swapping it in between the 17mm ES-92 and 12mm ES-92.  I wouldn't have ever thought a 76 degree AFOV would feel that way until I did the swap.  However, if you never swap in a wider eyepiece, you'll never feel that way using a Morpheus.

I actually don’t like the 100 degrees eyepieces as I found I was getting distracted from my on axis targets. I have found that the Morpheus 76 degrees perfect for me. It’s been a while since I’ve tried the wider eyepieces though, so I may have a second go with them. Never say never as the saying goes.

[John]

I found my way to the Ethos eyepieces by way of the Pentax XW's. I loved the neutral tone of the XW's, their sharpness and control of light scatter given their quite complex optical design. But I wanted those optical characteristics with an even wider field of view. The Ethos delivered that so I got hooked on those. An expensive taste to acquire 🙄

And quite different from the Svbony 3-8mm zoom too ! 

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by John

[Zermelo]

On 08/12/2023 at 22:16, Merak said:

Scrolling through the thread again reminds me that I have to get a parfocal ring to prevent any risk of it hitting the prism in my diagonal......

 

You may, or you may not:

 

[Merak]

21 hours ago, Zermelo said:

 

You may, or you may not:

 

I have the Tak diagonal and I believe it may be an issue.  In any case, the eyepiece has arrived, hopefully we'll have clear skies this year!

[Don Pensack]

On 10/12/2023 at 05:24, Louis D said:

I was surprised by how claustrophobic the 14mm Morpheus felt when swapping it in between the 17mm ES-92 and 12mm ES-92.  I wouldn't have ever thought a 76 degree AFOV would feel that way until I did the swap.  However, if you never swap in a wider eyepiece, you'll never feel that way using a Morpheus.

After well over a decade with Ethos eyepieces and now needing to wear glasses at the eyepiece, I have been using Morpheus eyepieces for much of my observing, though I do use an 11mm TeleVue Apollo 11 (85°) a lot.

But, below 8mm, I can simply take my glasses off and so every eyepiece I tend to use from 8mm down is 100-110°.  The Morpheus are my "narrow field" eyepieces, and I do have the 6.5mm and 4.5mm in my eyepiece case.

The 4.5mm Morpheus, in particular, is a super-sharp eyepiece, and I use it for double stars and the Moon in my 4" apo.

[Mr Spock]

53 minutes ago, Merak said:

I have the Tak diagonal and I believe it may be an issue.

Quote from that thread:
"Just tested the Tak prism - it has a small lip inside. My (very long barrelled) x2.5 Powermate sticks out a fair bit - and sticks out a huge amount when I put a variable polariser on it."

The lip inside prevents any contact with the prism 

[Merak]

On 11/12/2023 at 17:34, Mr Spock said:

Quote from that thread:
"Just tested the Tak prism - it has a small lip inside. My (very long barrelled) x2.5 Powermate sticks out a fair bit - and sticks out a huge amount when I put a variable polariser on it."

The lip inside prevents any contact with the prism 

Just had a play with it in the 76 and as you've mentioned above, no issues with the tak diagonal.     3mm(190x) a bit too much magnification tonight on both Jupiter and Saturn, somewhere between 4mm(142.x5) and 5(114x) would've been the sweet spot on this occasion.     I didn't spend too long looking because I was getting backache hunched over the eyepiece looking at Jupiter whilst it's up high - I need to either get an extension for the mount or an observing chair.

Edit:   I took another look at Jupiter and in the moments of steadier seeing Jupiter looked pretty good with a fair bit of detail.   Unless my mind was playing tricks, the GRS had some subtle colour to it.     I don't have any other eyepieces to directly compare it to in its range so I can't comment on how it fares against other.  I can't rule out buying other eyepieces in the future but the 3-8 will do me for a while.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Merak
Added more

[mikeDnight]

My SvBony Zoom arrived today and there's not a star in the sky. Typical!

After reading some very nice reports about this eyepiece I thought I should order one, which on Amazon was around £139 from what I remember. As it happens, I'm rubbish at remembering passwords and things like that, so I asked one of my lad's if he'd order it for me, which he did. However, he has something going with Amazon and received a welcome discount, and so I ended up paying £115. Even at the advertised £139 I think it's still a bargain price, especially when compared to Televue's 3-6 at over £400. I've observed with the TV 3-6 on several occasions and thought it very nice, though I don't believe it's worth the price, and so if the SvBony is as good as some suggest I should be very happy when the stars come out to play. 😆

Edited February 13 by mikeDnight

[cajen2]

Absolutely. I paid full price for mine (don't ask!) but it's worth every penny. Last night, I looked at the Trapezium through it, set at 3mm (238x mag), which is way over the theoretical limit of my scope, plus in poorish seeing, but it showed stars sharp and clear. If only it had a 100° FOV....😛 It'd be worth £500 of anyone's money then.

[John]

I wonder if this 3-8mm zoom will come out under other brandings ?

The UFF eyepieces seem to be available under a plethora of brands now and at a range of prices too.

 

[Louis D]

Probably after an exclusive marketing period agreement expires as happened with APM and the UFFs.

[Naughty Neal]

11 hours ago, John said:

I wonder if this 3-8mm zoom will come out under other brandings ?

The UFF eyepieces seem to be available under a plethora of brands now and at a range of prices too.

 

Although off topic of the main thread , like wise  the three  70deg Oberwerks are now available under the angeleyes brand name for a lot less money.

Edited February 14 by Naughty Neal

[LondonNeil]

Cheapest I can see for this currently os amazon and £130. Haven't people had it at about half that?

[Naughty Neal]

1 hour ago, LondonNeil said:

Cheapest I can see for this currently os amazon and £130. Haven't people had it at about half that?

Yes, a few of us bought it via AliExpress for approx. £75 inc p&p.

   Typically the offers are around Xmas or Black Friday/cyber Monday deals, occasionally deals come up on AliExp sporodically so a case of timing if one wants to buy at a bargain price.                                                                               That said even at the £130 asking price it is a super ep to have in the case, if one had very few or no high power ep's then this little star of an ep could save spending 100's/1000's of  £££'s on several seperate ep's if one is happy with approx. 60 degrees.                                                                                                                  

 

Edited February 22 by Naughty Neal

[Naughty Neal]

If one count's 0.5 mm steps , then this eps is 10 ep's in one.

In between each 1mm click/step of mag one can see and notice the  0.5mm mag step.

Edited February 22 by Naughty Neal