SVBONY SV230 8-20mm Zoom Eyepiece, Parfocal Design Wide-Angle 57°-72°, Aspherical Optics, 1.25" and 2" Dual Fit for Planetary & Deep Sky Observation

I bought this eyepiece and tried it out on my 6-inch f10 telescope. I observed the moon and the planet Jupiter. The eye relief and the width of the field of view were pretty good. The images seemed to be sharp and clear from the center to the edge of the field of view. The craters on the moon were wonderful. In a few minutes of very good seeing conditions, with the eyepiece focal length set close to 9 mm., I could observe much intricate and subtle shadings in Jupiter's cloud belts. Jupiter's four bright moons were neatly portrayed with no visible unwanted flare. This eyepiece seems to be optically really good. It is not overly heavy at around one pound in weight. The zoom control was slightly stiff in the cold air but still very manageable. A good zoom eyepiece can be very useful in observing faint galaxies and comets. You can sometimes see a faint galaxy pop into visibility as you slowly zoom from low to high power. The 2.5 to 1 zoom ratio was a bit low but this was probably necessary in the design to allow the field of view to be wide and the image quality to be excellent. I would like to see manufacturers make a 6 to 1 zoom eyepiece, or a compact, lightweight turret with four eyepieces covering a 10 to 1 ratio. I am including some photos of the moon that I took last year with my six-inch telescope, just to show what you can see with such a telescope.

High quality build, solid feel, easy click to change magnification.

After many many cloudy, snowy days since receiving this I finally got a first look. I have the SVBONY 68 degree eyepieces right now and love the ability to have 1 eyepiece with easy zoom adjustment instead of switching eyepieces. The ease of use makes my casual observing so much more enjoyable. Especially when you don’t have to readjust focusing! I only used 1.25” eyepieces in my telescope before and forgot that Skywatcher includes a 2” extension for when the 2” to 1.25” adapter is removed. Without it I was running out of travel on the focuser for closer objects. The included extension with my telescope wasn’t the most secure at holding this eyepiece, so I opted to buy the SV158 extension. The one thing I didn’t think of when deciding to go 2” only was my SVBONY filters I have aren’t really usable anymore. I could try taking off the 2” base, adding the filter, then adding back the filter, but not a quick process. Or I guess I could get over my desire to have a 2” eyepiece and use it as 1.25”. But it would be quite long with the 2” to 1.25” adapter to this eyepiece. Overall very happy with my purchase as a casual visual astronomer.

Superb optics, one of the best zoom lenses in this price range.