SVBONY SV25 Kid Telescope, 60mm Refractor Telescope for Kids Beginners Adults, Astronomy Telescope with Adjustable Tripod, Gift for Kids

Pros: Light weight, well built,easy for young children to use (7 and up), good views of the Moon and planets, good views of double stars and star clusters, great value.Cons: Wobbly tripod. Cell Phone adapter is usable, but limited to the moon, better to get a dedicated camera such as the SV105. Cannot see dimmer astronomical objects, but that is true of all telescopes in this size range.My Assessment: Good as a beginning telescope for children as long as you recognize its limitations. Let them explore with it, looking at bright objects in the sky (NOT THE SUN!). I would recommend a good book on Binocular Astronomy as a guide to how to find objects rather than a telescope based book as the view from this telescope is closer to that of binoculars than large telescopes.What can you see: I looked at the Moon, Venus, Jupiter (including the 4 main moons), Saturn (and its moon Titan), Mars, double stars and star clusters. These are great objects for this sized telescope and are easy to find. Bright comets, though I did not view one for this review I have certainly seen them through telescopes of this size.What you probably won’t see: nebula (this scope is too small), dim planets (Neptune and Pluto)The instruction manual was OK with the exception of how to connect the cell phone adapter. You want to aim the telescope at the object you want to photograph using the 20mm eyepiece. Once it is centered remove the eyepiece and slide it into the cell phone adapter with the suction cups up. Slide the eyepiece down until the rubber eyecup is even with the top of the adapter. Put the eyepiece with the adapter back into the diagonal. The suction cups should still be up. Slowly lower your camera onto the suction cups making sure the lens is directly over and centered on the eyepiece. You’ll need to move the phone around a bit to be able to see the telescope view in your camera. It will be a large circle with anything outside the circle black. Now, take the picture. I recommend practicing this in the daylight with the telescope pointed at a faraway object to get the hang of it.Full disclosure: I received this telescope from the manufacturer, SvBONY, for free to perform a review. I will be donating the telescope now that the review is completed and have received no other compensation for my review. I have a degree in Astrophysics and have been in astronomy for over 50 years and have build several telescopes and currently own at least 8 telescopes ranging in size from 60mm to 20 inches in diameter.Full Review: I’ll start by saying what this telescope is not, it is not the Hubble telescope or even an advanced amateur telescope so do not expect the views to look like what you find on the internet or in astronomy magazines. Those images are taken with expensive cameras using dozens to hundreds of exposures and massive amounts of image processing.This is an inexpensive telescope to introduce children (ages 7-14) to astronomy. My first telescope was a 60mm telescope similar to this one I received when I was 14. So, looking through this scope took me back a few years to when everything I looked at was a new and exciting.I found this telescope to be well built and very easy to use. If you use it with the included tripod a child can easily move the telescope around without removing it from the tripod. But, as stated earlier, I would replace the tripod with a sturdier one. Usually on small telescopes the finder scope is unusable. I was pleasantly surprised that the finder scope on the SV25 was quite usable once it was aligned with the main telescope. I did this by looking at a far-off telephone pole during the day, putting the top of the pole in the center of the main telescope view, loosen the finder scope screws, hold/push the finder scope until the top of the pole is centered in the crosshairs of the finder, then tighten the screws. After that I had no problem using the finder to center objects in the view of the main telescope.The two included eyepieces (20mm and 9mm) worked well. The power of each eyepiece is given by the focal length of the main lens (420mm) divided by the focal length of the eyepiece. So, the 20mm eyepiece gives 420/20= 21 power and the 9mm give 420/9 = 47 power. Also included is a 3x Barlow lens that triples the power of each eyepiece yielding 63 power and 141 power respectively. A general rule of thumb is that under normal conditions the maximum power is 1.2 times the primary lens size in mm or 1.2 x 60 = 72 power. On an excellent, clear night you can go up to 2 times the lens size or 2 x 60 =120 power so the 141 power (9mm + 3x Barlow) is really not usable and only makes the image blurry. Personally, I found the 20mm + 3x Barlow to give the best high power views.The first object I looked at was the Moon. The view at 21 power using the 20mm was excellent with the entire moon fitting easily within the view of the eyepiece. Craters were sharp and distinct and there was just a hit of blue color around the bright edge of the moon. This color is normal in small telescopes and was not big problem. Switching to the 9mm gave a better view of the craters on the moon as did the 20mm + 3x Barlow. Young astronomers will enjoy examining the moon in detail and can try to find features on the moon in addition to craters such as rays extending from the craters, lunar mountains and valleys. The telescope came with an adapter for a cell phone so I used my iPhone to take some images of the moon. The result is shown below and is the brownish colored image. It is best to download an App that allows you to manually set the exposure on the camera and to use a timer, Bluetooth adapter or verbal commands to activate the shutter as touching the button on the camera can cause the telescope to shake making the resulting image blurry. Also, be sure and turn off the flash! The moon is the only object I would recommend using the cell phone adapter on, at least in the night sky. It can also be used to photograph birds or other objects during the day.When I looked at Venus I could easily tell it was a “quarter moon” shaped Venus (Venus has phases similar to the moon because it is inside the earth’s orbit). But, Venus is so bright it overwhelms almost all telescopes. I had a 7 year old student from one of my classes find Venus. I didn’t give him any instruction at all and he was easily able to use the finder scope to locate and center Venus. Venus also showed color around the edges, blue on one edge and red on the other. This is not a problem with the lens (you would see blue all around) but due to the atmosphere so there isn’t much you can do about it.When I viewed Jupiter I could see all four main moons even at low power. But, I had to use the Barlow with the 20mm eyepiece to see the cloud bands on the planet itself. The planet was not that big, but it was fairly easy to see the dark bands across its surface.Saturn is spectacular in any telescope and did not disappoint. Although small, even at the higher power, the rings were unmistakable and visible at low and high power. I could also just make out Saturn’s largest moon Titan. The view took me back almost 50 years to when I first saw Saturn through my first 60mm telescope one cold, early February morning.Mars is currently (July 2018) at its closest it will be to earth in 2 years. I was able to see markings on Mars at the higher powers. They were faint, but definitely there. This is doubly amazing as there is currently a planet wide dust storm on Mars that makes the surface markings difficult to see. Mars will quickly get smaller and more difficult to see in the coming months.Alcor and Mizar is a double star system that is the center star in the handle of the Big Dipper. Mizar is itself a double star and I could just see the two components using the 20mm eyepiece. Switching to the 40mm easily split them into distinct stars with Alcor blazing at the opposite side of the eyepiece.Albireo, or Beta Cygnus, is at the foot of the Northern Cross (head of the swan Cygnus) and is a beautiful double star with a bright yellow star and a slightly fainter blue star. The 20mm eyepiece could easily see the two components and higher power made them more visible.I tried and failed to see M57, the Ring Nebula. On an excellent, dark night away from city lights I think it would be visible, but, the night I tried to observe it the air was filled with dust blown over from the Sahara and the nearby city lights (Dallas) made the sky too bright to see it.I also used my SV105 Electronic Eyepiece Camera that I had purchased earlier from SvBONY (Available from Amazon but may be cheaper elsewhere). This camera is really for photographing the Moon and the planets and my results are shown below. For both the Moon and Jupiter I used the SharpCap program (Freeware) to capture 30-second-long AVI videos. I then used Autostakkert (Freeware) to combine the images on each frame of the video into a single image. I then filtered them using Registax (Freeware) to enhance the features in the images. Finally, I imported the resulting images into an image program like Photoshop to adjust the brightness and contrast and do color corrections. The resulting images are quite good of the Moon and OK for Jupiter. Considering the other telescope and camera I use costs around $5000, these images turned out pretty good. The Mars image was a single snapshot from the camera as it was a bit windy when I took the images and they would not process well. Still, you can make out some detail on the surface which isn’t bad at all for something this inexpensive.Once again, a good beginning telescope if you keep your expectations under control. If your child does become interested it may launch them on a life long journey of discovery.UPDATE 7/27/2018: I had an opportunity to have the telescope tested by an 8 year old boy. Granted, he was a bit advanced for most 8 year olds, but he had never used a telescope before. I gave him the SV25 without really any instruction and had him find the same objects I discussed earlier. He was able to find the objects and seemed to have a lot of fun finding them. He had just seen these object in my 16" telescope, but he had fun finding them and looking at them himself. He used the tripod that came with the telescope so had a bit of problem getting the objects centered and focuses, but it didn't seem to effect his enthusiasm. Based on that I've raised the rating from 4 to 5 stars.

I bought this telescope to not only test but to also review. With that being said that brings me to the year 2018 and SvBony. I have been buying SvBony products for a while now because not only are they affordable; but they make some amazing products for beginners and even advanced users who really want to enjoy this hobby.Now let me talk about the SV25. I have not had a beginner scope since I re-entered this hobby so this was refreshing for me. Upon opening the box I was surprised it came with two decent eyepieces’ a 3X barlow lens’ a diagonal; a nice size solar system map; an adapter to use your phone to take images; a tripod and a nice little instruction book to get that beginner up and running in no time. So this item came with quite a lot of stuff for a really low price.I was not expecting something more than just okay. To my surprise I was blown away at the quality of not only visual observation but also during imaging. In my mind I was expecting chromatic aberration’ especially when observing or imaging the moon. There was no chromatic aberration what so ever. As most of us who have been in this hobby for a while know that a lot of low end refractors end up having some chromatic aberration.To me that was a plus that this scope did not produce any aberration. Now let me talk a little about the eyepieces. I have seen a lot of larger telescope companies give low end eyepieces with their scopes as those can be very costly. Both the 9mm and 20mm eyepiece that come with this scope are phenomenal and produce some amazing results during observation.This is one beginner telescope that is worth every penny. If you’re starting out and want to explore in Astronomy then this is right for you. Now mind you this is a beginner scope. It is a 420mm so it’s a pretty wide field of view so you can see a large portion of the night sky. I do not use my phones camera because I do not have a timer and my phone does not take good pictures.I also paired this small telescope up with the Sv105 astronomy camera to capture my images because I think it is much better than using my phone.Overall I am more than pleased with this scope. I wish SvBony was around and had scopes like this when I was only 11 years old. This would have been great for me when I first started out. I will enclose some images of the contents of this package and I will post a couple images I had taken with this scope.Special note: If you plan to use this to view the sun; use a solar filter on the front objective lens to avoid damaging your eyes and equipment. In my last image you see my home made solar filter.

This was a gift for a 12 year old. He was thrilled. Apparently, easy to use. Made me happy!

I bought this as a daily deal and I was super excited to get it but when I did there were no instructions as to how it should be put together. It took several hours of putting things on and taking things off to finally get it to work. Next, the tripod is not very good. it moves all over the place and makes it very hard to fix it to one particular spot.****UPDATE**** 9/18/2017This company has read my review and has done everything under the sun to make me happy. I would recommend this company and their products.

The telescope itself is very nice for the price but I have to give it a meh review because the tripod is junk...not at all sturdy & there was NO DIRECTIONS WHATSOEVER!!! Figured out the scope pretty quickly but the tripod is a 2 day mystery.

Christmas gift for my granddaughter. She loved it!! Use Svbony astronomical equipment myself and never had any mentionable problems with them. To date and what I’ve purchased find the performance just as good if not better and priced less then from other dealers .

Updating the review for excellent customer service offered by SVBONY. They sent a larger replacement tripod which while not perfect was better than the original tripod and for the price paid, reasonable and adequate.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Very poor quality, tripod very wobbly very difficult to focus on even large objects like moon.

My grandson was so pleased to see the moon last night. It is a perfect starter unit and I know it will make him more curious about the galaxy above.

Pleased with this item,as described,value for money.Delivery good,arrived on schedule.

Bought this as a gift for our friends children (8yrs & 13yrs).Likes:* Solid build* Good size for small children* 2 types of magnificationDislikes: (there are a few)# Not easy to locate the moon let alone any other heavenly body# Tripod is flimsy and not stable when full extended. Metal yes but hollow.# Distorted viewing# Instructions are a jokeOverall very disappointed. I would be returning this however it was a gift for friends in South Africa and would be a hassle to bring it back to Australia to seek a refund. In my opinion - don't waste your money

The instructions for the telescope are indecipherable - to the extent I am concerned that I have been sold a fake? Words throughout the so-called instruction booklet are incorrect and missing . There is no guidance on how to set up the telescope other than as per the attached photo.

Great telescope but the mount has let us down from the outset. My daughter doesn't use the telescope much because everything wobbles about so much with a loose mount. It's a shame because the actual telescope is excellent.

Totally dissatisfied with the telescope. Would like to return it. Please advise proceedure.