Orion SkyView Deluxe 6

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Date: NA
Price: $499.99
Design: 6” reflector with 750mm focal length at f/5
Description: 6” reflector on Equatorial mount. Comes with (2) 1.25” Plossl eyepieces at 9mm & 25mm. It also includes a moon filter, a 6x30 finder scope and a Polar alignment scope that goes in the EQ mount itself.

Circumstances behind this Review

Born in Peru in 1965, I’ve been always interested in astronomy… but because of the way things are down there, owning a telescope was totally out of the question… I was unable to own one. (way too expensive)

I used to borrow my grandfather’s binoculars and enjoy the view as much as I could with his Carl Zeiss 7x50’s… and hoped that one day I would be able to own a scope of my own…

I moved into the United States about 13 years ago… and it is until now that I was able to get me a scope, not as big and expensive as I wanted, but a very good starter scope nonetheless…

I did a lot of research before I bought it… I made myself member of several Astronomy groups, on the Web and around the area where I live (Coconut Creek, Florida), and asked as many questions as I could think of, looking for answers and recommendations.

The Telescope and Accessories

I can’t describe how excited I was when I received the scope… it came properly packaged, and even though it comes with a good small manual, it was very easy to set up.

You can actually see & feel the quality of the scope as soon as you start getting the pieces out of the box. Everything is made of metal… there are no plastic pieces involved on any of the main parts that belong to the mount or the scope.

The telescope tube, rings, focuser, mount, tripod, accessory tray, finder scope, finder scope rings are all made of metal.

The Plossl eyepieces that come with the scope are of good quality, they are of the 1.25” size (standard).

The focuser is well built and very smooth…

Collimation

As of now I have not had the need to collimate my scope… it came perfectly collimated from factory (instruction on how to collimate are included in the scope’s manual)

Observations

So far this month (January 2001) I had about 12 good nights of viewing, in which I tried the scope on several objects.

The only bad thing is that where I live there’s a lot of light pollution, so finding some of the objects is a very time consuming task…

The views of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus are great… very sharp and defined.

I had no problem viewing M42 (Orion’s Nebula) which looks great… and also the Pleiades group of stars looks very nice on the 25mm Plossl.

I had a hard time finding M31 (Andromeda galaxy), but not because of the scope, but because of my skies…

I can’t wait until I take this scope to darker skies to “really” see what it can do!

Conclusions

I’ve always wanted to get a computerized scope… but after doing all the research I did, finally came to the conclusion that a “good computerized scope” would not be on my price range but probably around $1500+, so I decided to get a good standard scope instead.

There’s not another scope under $500 that I would recommend more… (besides the Orion’s XT8 Dob if you’re only thinking about viewing and not taking pictures)

I’m very satisfied with this scope performance and quality.

Submitted by Ivan E. Gastaldo - gastaldo@bellsouth.net - Coconut Creek, Florida


The Review

I've wanted a telescope as long as I can remember. To be able to zoom into the heavens has always been my dream.

After months and months of reading reviews, I decided to invest in the Orion Skyview 6" Deluxe telescope. This is my first telescope, and I've only been using it for a couple of months, so bear with me.

Setting it up took an hour or two. Hey, it was my first time! The parts are all finely crafted, and are very strong, well worth the money. The mount is very steady. After screwing in the finder scope, I sat back, and stared at the beauty. My God, what a finely crafted instrument! I couldn't wait to get it outside. Unfortunately, the sky was full of clouds for the entire week,
and I was going to Lake Tahoe the week after.

Two weeks later, I FINALLY got the chance to test it out. The telescope came with two eyepieces. A 25mm which performs very well, revealing sharp images and a wide field of view. It's great for lunar observing and viewing star fields, but with the low focal length of the Skyview 6, It doesn't yield enough magnification for going further with planets and deep sky objects. I thought Jupiter was another star! Which brings me to my second point, buy a star map. The telescope comes with a CD-ROM called Where the Stars Are, which is pretty useful. However, for the beginner, it might be a little confusing. A GREAT computer program is Starry Night, which has you sitting in the middle of a field. You just type in your Latitude and Longitude, and you have your night sky plotted out exactly as you see it.

Anyway, the other eyepiece the scope comes with is a 9mm with a very low field of view. It yields an 83X magnification, and yet the view is still fairly blurry and mushy. I figured this had something to do with the collimation, so I started tinkering around with the collimation screws. DON'T EVER mess with the collimation screws until you know what you're doing! That's my word of advice. Images were still clear with the 25mm, but they were even worse with the 9mm. Even today I'm still getting the hang of collimation, and I'm still never sure if my scope is correctly collimated. The manual does NOT have very clear instructions on collimation, and the majority of websites are very confusing in their instructions. One of the
employees in the store offered to show me firsthand how to collimate, and I think I'll be taking him up on that offer.

I recently purchased a 3X Barlow lens, and it is superb. It's a must for this scope, as the focal length is pretty low. With the 25mm you get a 90X magnification, which is perfectly clear. It's still a bit hard to make out detail in Jupiter, but that might have to do with the collimation of my scope. You can make out the rings in Saturn, view the awesome colors of Pleiades, etc. I love the 25mm. With the 9mm you yield a 250X power, which is pretty useless. Jupiter will appear as a big blob. Saturn will look like a blob with two blurry lines sticking out of it. I don't know what to make of the 9mm eyepiece.

So far I have been very impressed by this scope. A few obstacles have not gotten in the way of a great night out viewing. I'm going to try out Astrophotography later on. Seems challenging, but fun. I'm also going to invest in a 17mm Plossl and a 12.5mm Plossl, and maybe some Orthos along the road.

Clear skies and happy viewing!

Submitted by Gunky Boy - gunkyboy@hotmail.com - USA

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