Stellarvue 80/9D Review
When
I got back into astronomy in a big way, almost twenty years ago now, the first
thing I did was to re-commission my long dormant, bought-from-new orange tube
C8. The second thing I did was buy a refractor. This is it.
Back
then decent refractors were expensive and this was one of the cheapest
available. Now the price I paid, shipping and duties included, seems
eyewatering (about £600); the market has changed meanwhile.
Vic
Maris was just setting up Stellarvue in the first
years of the new millennium and this was one of their early refractors. I
wanted a TV-85 but couldn’t afford it, so I bought this, hoping for a good
planetary and Lunar scope.
At
A Glance
|
Telescope |
Stellarvue 80/9D |
|
Aperture |
80mm |
|
Focal
Length |
750mm |
|
Focal
Ratio |
F9.4 |
|
Length |
~800mm |
|
Weight |
4.5Kg |
Data from SV.
What’s
in (on) the Box?
Tiggy,
Our Maine Coon, really liked the Stellarvue box, for
some reason.
Design
and Build
This
early Stellarvue is an unusual mixture of artisan/ATM
and bought-in generic parts: it’s neither a Sky-Watcher nor a TeleVue, but something in between. In some areas, the build
is a bit patchy, in others heavily over-engineered.
Optics
The
80/9D objective is a longish focal-length 80mm air-spaced achromat, with a
focal length of 750mm (F 9.4).
That
F9.4 may seem an unusual number, but there’s method. I have mentioned before
the rule of thumb that says an achromat needs a focal ratio of about 1.2x the
lens diameter in cm to perform well in respect of chromatic aberration and that
ratio is right where the 80/9D sits. It’s a good choice because the 80/9D is
still compact enough to go on a grab-n-go mount like the Vixen Porta (see photo
below) and able to deliver a reasonable field of view (up to 3.5 deg with a 55mm Plossl).
The
lens is most likely Chinese and has typical ‘China Green’ multi coatings that
are less transparent than the best.
Tube
The
OTA is massive, thick-walled aluminium and gives the 80/9D a heft and presence
that an Evostar lacks. The long focal length means
(as you can see) that it’s quite large for an ‘80’. My version has a fixed dew-shield
(later ones are retractable I think). Weight is about 4.5kg – again, very heavy
for an 80mm refractor.
The
impression is of a hand-made scope in both good and bad ways. The internal
finish is excellent with four knife-edge baffles. The exterior paint is deep
and shiny, the milled and anodised lens ring much classier than a cast
enamelled Synta one and threads onto the tube.
But
there are some rough-edges here and there (this is an early Stellarvue,
more recent ones have been more polished): the lens cover is a very crude and
falls off at every opportunity; the edge of the dewshield
has overpainting like it would if I’d sprayed it in my garage.
Like
a Tele Vue or a Takahashi, though, it has an individual serial number.
Focuser
Twenty
years on the 80/9D is both familiar and unfamiliar. The 2” R&P focuser is
metal bodied and looks much like the Synta ones you
find on entry-level Sky-Watchers today, but in fact it has a finer quality
drawtube and a rather different feel: a bit ‘grainy’ but precise and accurate
in a way the Sky-Watcher version isn’t.
The
oversized and grippy knobs seem to be SV’s own – not exactly Tele Vue mag’
wheels, but quality items.
Still,
like a cheap Synta (and unlike the lens cell) it
attaches with screws instead of threads.
Mounting
Large
and heavy though it is for an 80mm refractor, the 80/9D works fine on most
small mounts and I typically use it on a Vixen GP or Porta; in Sky-Watcher
terms it would need an EQ5 (not an EQ3). The cast tube rings have single ¼-20
threads and will fit most dovetail plates (the one you see below is an original
Vixen). Stellarvue supplied me with a nice little
plate that allowed it to fit my Tele Vue Panoramic mount as well.
Accessories
The
80/9D came with a basic red dot finder, Synta-like
tube rings that go straight on a Vixen dovetail and a 50mm Plossl
eyepiece.
Stellarvue 80/9D on a Vixen Porta 1 mount.
Stellarvue’s basic but functional RDF.
In
Use – The Night Sky
Like
most small doublets, cooldown is quick and benign and the scope produces nice
images from the word go. Chromatic aberration is still present at high powers
on planets or O-B stars, but it is always well controlled and unobtrusive in a
way even a 100mm F8 achromat is not. However, compared to a fluorite apochromat
like a Takahashi FS-78 it does produce high-power images just a little warmer
in tone and dimmer and slightly less crisp.
Finding
things with the big-window RDF and potential for a 2” EP is a doddle (unlike
the Vixen A70LF for example with its similar focal length, but 1.25” only
focuser and toybox finder).
Focus
snap is excellent and the star-test near perfect. Stray light is very well
controlled. A Stellarvue promise from the beginning
was to test each scope; this is certainly a good one, but the word on the
street is that it is typical.
Whilst
the Moon is doubtless its favourite object, with typical refractor crispness –
icy greys and blacks and superb contrast - it does work well on the planets and
DSOs with overall performance just a notch below a good APO.
There’s
little else to say, because the 80/9D just does what it’s supposed to and has
no nasty surprises.
Summary
A
much classier way into a budget refractor than the usual suspects, with a
hand-made feel, careful design to maximise performance and quality pretty much
guaranteed. However, it’s too heavy for a photo tripod (don’t imagine this is SW
Evostar 90 weight) and would benefit from a dual
speed focuser upgrade.
Recommended
if you can find a good one used, but don’t pay APO money for it.