French Skyvision Dob.

[ollypenrice]

I have a guest here at the minute with his 12 inch Dob. It is handbuilt by a French outfit called Skyvision (www.skyvision.fr) and is VERY nice indeed. The craftsmen making lovely scopes by hand - there's our own David Lukehurst for instance - may be worried by the arrival of fairly decent Chinese Dobs and I hope they survive.

However, this Skyvision instrument is no mass production item and is just stunning in every detail that I could think to examine. The woodwork is impeccable, in varnished ply. The truss is ingenious, folds together neatly and attaches convincingly to aluminium plates on the mirror box with cycle quick releases. Nuts and bolts are in attractive stainless steel.

The secondary assembly is light and holds collimation extremely well, I'm told by Guy, the owner. The collimation knobs for the primary protrude through the bottom of the mirror box and are large, accessible and work well.

I had the pleasure of looking through it last night and both the optics and the movement were sensibly perfect as far as I was concerned. It was incredibly smooth and light to move yet stayed put when not touched and the Moonlite focusser was the final pleasure.

Okay, they are not cheap but I couldn't see a single thing that I would want to alter in any way. I'm posting this because I really feel strongly that Skyvision deserve to survive and anyone who has a taste for quality might well want to give them the once-over.

If you are stuck with the French just ask me to translate.

I have no connection with this firm.

Olly.

[RobH]

They do look good Olly.

I especially like the 16 inch RC observatory scope.

Couldn't find a price list though.

Rob

[kniclander]

They do look good Olly.

I especially like the 16 inch RC observatory scope.

Couldn't find a price list though.

Rob

as they say, if you have to ask the price ..........

[JAO]

Olly

Thanks for the link, the lightweight models look excellent. I need to brush up on my o'level french and then give them a ring!

Adrian