Product Review Part II: Svbony SA405 85mm ED Spotting Scope: Eyepieces & Imaging Capabilities. (1 Viewer)

[Dipperdapper]

Afternoon all,

Please find a link to my experiments with eyepieces and the SC001 imaging camera used with the Svbony SA405 20x-60x 85mm ED spotting scope.

Product Review Part II: The Svbony SA405 ED 85mm 20x-60x Spotting Scope – Eyepiece Choices & Imaging Capabilities. | Neil English.net

With best wishes,

Neil.

 

[Dipperdapper]

More miscellaneous images as I get them all taken with the SA405 spotter and SC001 imaging cam:

Mr Jackdaw, 40 yards distant, bright sunshine:

 

[KC Foggin]

Three great images Dipper!

 

[Dipperdapper]

Cheers KC; will post more as I get them.

Best wishes,

Neil.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Two images against a grey, overcast sky.

Telephone pole 35m distant


Sky TV dish 140m distance

 

[Dipperdapper]

Mute Swan with some of the new arrivals- 170m distance, bright sunshine.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Grey Heron hunting in the reedbed; 150m distance, bright overcast sky.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Preening Mute Swans with Cygnets: bright overcast sky, 110m

 

[Granpoli]

For birdwatching is good!!
But for astronomical observations.. How is?
Thanks,
Poli

 

[gcole]

Hi Neal, nice pic’s just read the review. I was wondering which spotter would produce better images visually , this SA405 or the SA401 from Svbony ? Also based on each scopes spec’s and construction which is actually the more high end scope with the better glass ? I do not glass with a spotter anymore but I am tempted to purchase the SA401, just to see what different high end eyepieces will produce the best images visually. Amazon is offering the SA401 at a very appealing price.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Evening all: hauled the gear up to another one of my local patches where Buzzards often roam. Conditions this evening were sunny but windy. Captured this pic using an ordinary photo tripod but was worried the images wouldn't come out OK. This is one image I took of a Buzzard at ~85m distance:

A little CA creeping in but quite pleased overall.

Regards,

Neil.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Hi Poli,

Thanks for the feedback. It's a very decent astro scope. Max true field is around 3 degrees with a field stop of ~16mm. I've only had it up to 67x but I've got a 4mm Plossl eyepiece coming, so hope to coax 121x out of it for observing the Moon, double stars and planets. I did see Venus about ten days back like a tiny first quarter moon. With Baader Astrosolar material, a homemade solar filter gives excellent white light solar images. That said, a 45 degree eyepiece tilt is not nearly as comfortable or as convenient as a 90 degree standard dagonal.

Regards,
Neil.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Hello gcole,

Thank you for the feedback also.

I've not tested the SA401 unfortunately, so can't offer an opinion based on a side by side comparison. The SA401 has a 4-element, double ED objective(the SA405 is a triplet with one ED element) so should give even crisper images with less CA at the highest powers. If the price is right, I'd go for the SA401. That said, the SA405 is very good indeed IMO and might suit most people not requiring the more aggressive control of CA.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[Dipperdapper]

Roe deer enjoying a buttercup meadow: evening light, sunny, windy ~130m

 

[Dipperdapper]

Mr Magpie enjoying some evening sunshine; 75 yards distance

 

[Dipperdapper]

Come to pappa! Three more images taken of the young Grey Heron in the conifer tree ; sunny evening, no wind.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Here's a few more I took of the young Heron yesterday evening( as the previous three were) but only downloaded this morning:

 

[Dipperdapper]

This afternoon I used the SA405 coupled to the SC001 imager to take a white light image of the Sun using a filter made with Baader Astrosolar material.


Here is an image I captured showing a few sunspot groups on the photosphere:

 

[Dipperdapper]

The 4mm Plossl arrived and I was able to boost the magnification to 121x. Daytime images remain crisp and sharply focused with a little more CA creeping in. Star testing the 4mm ocular on the SA405 on Vega revealed, nice concentric Fraunhofer diffraction rings either side of focus. In focus, the Airy disk is white with a faint first diffraction ring and a little more secondary spectrum than that reported at 67x.




I was able to conduct some double star testing at 121x yesterday evening in the summer twilight:

Epsilon 1 & 2 Lyrae: the famous Double Double easily resolved into four white components.

Epsilon Bootis(Izar): Beautiful colour contrast double, orange primary and bluish secondary close in.

Iota Cassiopeiae: Triple system, with all three components well resolved.

 

[Dipperdapper]

Two more images: a young Magpie on a nearby rooftop (39 yards)