Sylvan Company 6 inch Reflector Review
| December, 2003
Halfway through 2003 I decided to get myself a
telescope. Since I've never even used a scope, I did a lot of reading on the internet, and
a lot of shopping around.
Quality telescopes are EXPENSIVE!
Everyone warns against buying "department store" scopes and stuff on EBay, so
of course I immediately had a look on EBay to see what people were selling.
Obviously, there's a lot of real rubbish on there. But I did notice a company called
"uk-direct" or "thejamescompany" (they previously traded as
"sylvancompany") selling a lot of 6" Newtonian Reflectors.
Importantly, these scopes are delivered from within the UK, so there are no customs
duties or extra VAT to pay (add 6% then another 17.5% - beware anyone selling items on
EBay which are delivered from overseas)
There are also a lot of other people on EBay US selling identical unbranded scopes,
(have a look at "taximarket" on EBay.com).
These look great in the pictures, and seemed to be selling for between £170 and £200.
Delivery was rather expensive (£25).
A six inch scope in the UK from a "proper" internet dealer will cost you
nearly twice this amount, so this looks like a really good deal.
Eventually in November 2003 I took the plunge (by landing a bid about 15 seconds before
the end of an auction) and ordered one.
Paying for the scope was simple via PayPal. uk-direct kept me up to date with emails on
delivery progress (via ParcelForce).
No complaints so far....
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| The scope arrives in a very substantial box, which is very heavy! There is
no "branding" to the box. ParcelForce picked it up on Fri 7th Nov and
delivered by Wed 12th (not a great performance but this is England for you)
Now, my wife insists that this scope is my christmas present (not to be opened until
Santa pops it under the tree) but I was able to assemble it for a daytime test (purely to
check everything was in the box, of course)
I'll get back and do a full review when I get the chance... |
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Inside the box, everything looks very tidy Some of the boxes inside
contain mostly air (the small box at the top left contains just the accessory tray) |
The manual is brief and a miracle of Chinese to English translation.
Luckily assembling the scope is fairly simple.
The warranty card gives the address of Sylvan Inc in South Carolina, USA... How they
deal with faulty products in the UK is an issue I would not care to have to find out.
Building the Scope
| The first thing I did was to take out the finder scope and have a look at
the moon This was a big mistake.
The finder is a horrid plastic thing with (I suspect) plastic lenses. Its the kind of
thing you would buy in a toy shop for £1, and still be disappointed.
The view is blurred and exhibits quite incredible chromatic aberration.
With a sinking feeling, I put it back and continued unpacking...
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The Mount
| Next out of the box was the mount. This is solid metal (aluminium I
think) and reassuringly heavy. I began to feel a little better about my purchase!
Here shown partially assembled (counterweight and cable controls need putting on).
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| Next task was assembling the tripod and mount. The legs are very
lightweight aluminium and do not feel particularly rigid, but in my daytime test I didn't
have any "shake" problems. |
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The accessory tray screws on to the tripod struts.
The Telescope
Tube is metal and feels fairly robust. Having never seen a reflector before, I was
surprised at how heavy the mirror end of the scope is (mirror is at the right hand end of
the scope in this picture).
Balancing the scope with the counterweight is quite tricky, but the mount seems to work
pretty well.
Disappointingly, the scope does have "Event Horizon" stamped on it. This just
says "unbranded" to me - it would look much better if they had some chinese
script on it!
| The picture they put on EBay actually makes the scope look a bit bigger
than it is (an effect of using a wide angle lens, with the scope probably a couple of feet
nearer than the bloke in the picture). All the same - this is a pretty big and
impressive looking scope. |
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The mounting bracket supplied looks a lot smaller than the one pictured in
the manual (although the same as the picture on EBay), with the result that the tube rings
are closer together. This does not look as sturdy as it might be, but when it's all
bolted together the whole assembly does seem fairly rigid. |
Focuser - this is plastic but seems to operate quite smoothly. You put different
eyepieces in the focuser for different magnifications.
| The spider - those supports look a bit thick to me, which will impair
optical quality (though with the tradeoff of improved robustness) There is a plastic
dust cap that fits on here, but this doesn't fit solidly and falls off if you tilt the
scope.
You can see the primary mirror down the tube. This is the most important part of any
reflector, and looks like it's pretty good quality. |
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The Eyepieces
Two eyepieces are supplied: a 25mm Plossl and a 6.5mm Plossl.
You also get a 2x Barlow Lens, an Erecting Eyepiece and a moon filter
Erecting Eyepiece
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Since it was daytime, the first thing I did was put in the erecting
eyepiece with the 25mm eyepiece. The erecting eyepiece does not look very impressive. It
is totally plastic, with a very small lens assembly in the middle (see left).
Looking through the scope in this configuration (at a building about two miles away)
proved very disappointing. Focussing was difficult, indeed impossible to get the whole
image focussed. Not impressed.
You can probably get hold of a separate erector of much better quality, but of course
this is going to be an additional expense.
In any case, using a scope like this (on an equatorial mount) for terrestrial observing
is a bit dumb anyway - you would be much better off with a spotting scope. |
25mm Eyepiece
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Next I removed the erecting eyepiece and put in the 25mm Plossl on it's
own. This is much more like it! The view was bright and clear, and easy to focus.
As you can see there is a big piece of glass in the lens here.
Impressed with this eyepiece. |
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Barlow Lens
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This picture shows the 2x Barlow lens and the 25mm Plossl in the eyepiece. This
combination works very well - the Barlow seems to be quite good quality,
so I'm quite pleased with this too... |
6.5mm Eyepiece
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The 6.5mm Plossl - this was difficult to focus and not very bright. I'm not sure how
useful this would be for night-time observing.
The lens inside this eyepiece looks a bit puny to me.
Using the 6.5mm with the erecting eyepiece was (as I expected) pretty pointless.
Used with the 2x Barlow, much the same as on its own, but 2x magnified (as you would
expect) |
Other Stuff...
Also in the box are a "star map" and moon map.
The star map is pretty useless (it won't help you find anything), and the moon map is
in a horrid combination of blue and green.
Neither item is particularly useful
The Verdict
It's hard for me to give this scope a rating, as it's the first scope I've ever used,
but I think some things are obvious:
| The Good |
The Bad |
| 6" aperture |
Finderscope is rubbish |
| 25mm Plossl |
Erecting eyepiece is very poor |
| 2x Barlow Lens |
6.5mm Plossl not very good (?) |
| Solid Mount |
Tripod may be a bit flimsy |
| The Price |
Dust Cap falls off |
I'll get back to this review after christmas, when I can try some proper observing.
I would be curious to know how this scope compares to the "branded" scopes
from Celestron, Skywatcher etc - it looks very similar to some of their models, though I
think the accessories are different.
Conclusion
On the whole, I think these scopes represent pretty good value,
despite the poor quality of some of the accessories.
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If you would like to comment on this review, or if you have bought one of these scopes
and have your own opinions, please mail me:
address: mike @ jarnell.com
Thanks.
Copyright (c) 2003 Jarnell.com