Telescope Reviews: SkyView AZ - First impressions.

For over a year and a half, I've been living on what is known as the Covey Hill. It is the hillside at the northern base of the Adirondacks, and have light-pollution-free southern views from my front porch. I have a few town lights around to annoy me, but, I can, on clear nights, see the Milkyway's trace in the sky when I'm carefull about avoiding the glare of the street lights. Such a setup pushes one to do a lot of front-porch peaking. Since I've been here, my trusty 80ED on a photo tripod was the weapon of choice, because the porch is too narrow to use an equatorial mount in a comfortable fashion.

Now, in comes the Skyview.

I took it out of the car, set it up, setup my 6" Mak, my 9x50, my diagonal and slipped in my favorite eyepiece, the 24mm Panoptic. I balanced the setup, and in less than 2 minutes, a step away from my kitchen door, I was set! So, here the usability low-down, from a two hour stint, with only one scope mounted, weighing in at around 13½ pounds total.

Pros:

Sturdy stainless legs.
Eazy to setup
Eazy to use.
Works well for no fuss sit-down observation.
Dampening time was impeccable at about one second. (see notes.)

Cons.

Stiction. Movement is not super-fluid, so nitpickers will have a field day whinning on this point.
No slow-mo controls. Not that it matters much to me, but it seems to be a recuring "want" on Alt-Az setups.
Tripod does not extend very high, so refractor users, beware. A 80ED is no problem, but meter-long refractors could be problematic without an extension pier of some sort.

Notes.

- I only had one scope mounted, dampening times will certainly vary when I add my 80ED to the setup.
- I was, as I mentioned, on a front porch, so for real, high powered view stability, and dampening times, I Will have to make some field tests before making a definitive comment on this point.
- This is a first impression, not an in depth review, and I'm writing this at a time long past my bedtime, so I'm not going to go any further on the subject.

My ratings: 8.3/10

Bang-for-the-buck: 9/10
Usability: 9/10
Fit and finish:7/10

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

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Seb

Eyepiece spreadsheet v6.8

Choosing the right eyepiece

Main scope: 150mm Maksutov
Scnd scope: 200mm Schmidt-Cassegrain
Favorite ep: 24 Panoptic and 11m T6 Nagler
Pref'ed filters: Lumicon 0III and UHC
Mounts: EQ6-Pro and Skyview AZ