Product Description
Waiting Period: This telescope is an investment. Please do not order if you are in a hurry or you cannot tolerate unforeseen delays. Time is not of the essence, optical accuracy is. We are in continuous production and operate one year in advance. Recently, we have been receiving a greater than normal demand for this model. For this reason, telescopes ordered with Stellarvue focusers are now being delivered in about 60 - 90 days. This our best guess estimate at the current time. Telescopes ordered with Feather Touch or Moonlight focusers may take longer as we wait for backordered focusers to arrive. Call us for a more accurate delivery estimate for telescopes using these focusers.One thing is certain, the sooner you order, the sooner you will receive yours.
- A Stellarvue 3" dual speed focuser with 4.4 inches of drawtube travel, 2" and 1 1/4" compression ring adapters
- FB finder scope dovetail mounting base
- Large removable extensions between the focuser and telescope for wide field bino-viewing without the need for optical adapters
- Cnc machined, heavy duty mounting rings.
- Precision adjustment mechanisms on both the objective lens cell and the focuser. The telescope leaves here permanently aligned but customers requested the ability to be able to precisely adjust the focuser and the objective just in case they accidently drop the instrument on a hard surface. .
Tube and dew shield: The Stellarvue SVX127D comes with an aluminum tube and dew shield that is finished in Instrument White. Fittings are black anodized aluminum. The dew shield retracts reducing the length of the telescope when being stored. Extending the dew-shield minimizes dewing of the objective at night and serves as a glare shade during the daytime.
Internal tube treatment: The inside of the main tube assembly is painted "ultra flat black" and is baffled to eliminate tube wall reflections.
Aluminum hinged rings: The SVX127D comes with Stellarvue rings that are cnc machined from one inch thick 6061-T6 aluminum. There are five 1/4-20 threaded holes top and bottom. There is a center hole, two holes that are 1.5" apart and two holes that are 2.4" apart. American made Stellarvue rings are significantly stronger than cast aluminum rings.
Light gathering and magnification power: A 127 mm refractor gathers 329 times the amount of light the naked eye does. Although Dawes limit states maximum power for telescopes under good conditions is about 300 power for a telescope of this size, since this is a high Strehl apo refractor you can exceed this power on steady nights. Check the Recommended Accessories section to make the best choice for eyepieces.
Two year warranty and Stellarvue Service: We are friends for life. Stellarvue telescopes and accessories are covered by a two-year warranty. But it does not stop there. Since we are a telescope maker, we can repair your telescope for a very nominal fee years after it goes out of warranty, should you accidentally drop it on concrete or otherwise damage it. Buy a Stellarvue Telescope with confidence. Our customer care is legendary.
Optional Accessories
In addition to the supplied accessories, you will need the following:
1. Visual Use: For visual use you will need a star diagonal and eyepiece(s). Our finest visual accessories may be purchased with the telescope at a discount when the telescope is finished (see special offers below).
2. Mount and Tripod: We recommend the following mount/tripod combinations for this telescope:
- M002CW: Made entirely in the USA in our shop, this is one of the smoothest alt-Azimuth mounts on the market. People love this one because it is so easy to use with with simple up/down and side to side motions. This mount is for visual use. For imaging an equatorial mount is required.
- Celestron AVX Mount/Tripod. This is a lightweight mount with a go-to computer. It is a very reasonably priced and portable EQ mount .
- Losmandy GM811G. Made in the USA, this is a precision EQ mount with computerized go-to function. If you plan to image with this telescope this is a good choice. If you only want to use the telescope visually, the less expensive GM8 version will work fine.
3. Optional Case: Our C130L optional, heavy duty, thickly-padded Nylon hard case comes with a heavy duty zipper. These cases are substantially more durable than the thin-walled Chinese hard cases. Since these cases breathe and are more durable your telescope is better protected than it would be in a less expensive case. We do not recommend sealed cases for telescope storage. The only time we have seen mold inside a telescope has been when it was stored in a sealed case. Telescopes brought in after being used at night under dewy conditions should be dried at room temperature before being sealed and stored in a case.
4. Astro-Photography: To image with this telescope you will need a photographic field flattener (SFFX-1 for SVX127D). Imaging the night sky will also require an accurately guiding mount, off-axis guider, or a guide scope with a guiding camera.
5. Finder Scope: For easily locating objects at night we recommend our top rated 50 mm optical finder scope. To mount the finder scope you will need our R050DA adjustable mounting rings. Our EI002 reticle illuminator will allow you to see the crosshair reticle in the eyepiece at night.
Specifications:
Objective Lens:
127 mm clear aperture, 1,016 mm focal length (F-8), apochromatic doublet using super low dispersion (SD) optical glass and Lanthanum.
Tube Assembly:
Machined, fully baffled, aluminum tube painted Instrument White outside, ultra flat back inside.
Weight:
The optical tube assembly weighs about 18 pounds with heavy duty rings. The rings weigh about 1.25 lbs each.
Dimensions:
The main tube has a 5-1/4" diameter. The complete telescope is about 35 3/8” long with dew shield retracted and about 41 3/4" when extended. This is with the 60 mm bino-viewer extension attached. When this extension is removed and bino-viewers are used the telescope itself is 60mm shorter. The extension is 120 mm on the 3" Feather Touch version since this focuser has a shorter drawtube.
Dew shield:
6-1/2" diameter fully retracting dew shield with cap.
Focuser:
3" Model FSV-3B Stellarvue rack and pinion dual speed focuser comes standard with this telescope. 2" and 1.25" compression ring adapters and finder scope mounting base is included. An optional 2.5" Feather Touch focuser is available for $600 additional. Select the focuser you prefer at the top of the page.
Extensions to facilitate virtually any binoviewer:
The standard model with our outstanding 3" focuser comes with two large extension tubes placed in between the focuser and the main tube.One is 60 mm long and the other 40 mm long. The extensions stay in place when used with eyepieces or a photographic field flattener but when binoviewers are added along with the 2" star diagonal, one or both extensions can be removed. This positions the focuser closer to the objective eliminating the need for additional optical correctors to emable the binoviewer to come to focus. The increases the size of the field while reducing the amount of glass between the objective and the eyepiece. This results in a brighter, wider field of view. If ordered with the Feather Touch focuser, two 60 mm extensions are provided since that focuser has a shorter drawtube.
Rings: R130 cnc machine mounting ring set with five 1/4-20 threaded holes top and bottom. Holes are spaced 1.5” and 60 mm apart respectively, with one in the center. These are not lightweight, cast aluminum but machined 6061-T6 aluminum that is far more durable than castings.
Light Gain: 330. (Human eye = 1)
Manual: A full-color, printed operator's manual is included with each telescope. Here is a PDF copy of that manual: SVX127D Manual
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Product Reviews
6 Reviews Hide Reviews Show Reviews
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SVX127D
I am extremely pleased with the optical quality of this scope. Also, the mechanical build of the OTA is top notch. The Stellarvue focuser is a solid performer. The 5” aperture puts up beautiful views of the planets. Definitely 5 stars. Thank you SV
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Stellarvue Doublet Apo SVX127D
The telescope arrived months earlier than projected.
I am still waiting for the weather to clear so it has not seen "first light" yet. It appears to be very well made. -
SVX127D
Outstanding optical quality! Bench test interferometry from Stellarvue showed a Strehl of 0.99. I ran a WinRoddier software analysis of the scope with a high-speed video camera under live-sky. The scope was not force-cooled to ambient temp yet and was tested in less than ideal atmospheric conditions.
Despite the conditions I got 0.98 Strehl in the Green (visual) wavelengths. So the 0.99 Strehl factory Zygo test in a controlled lab bench environment appears to be legitimate for sure on this scope.
I got a polychromatic Strehl (full color all throughout the Red, Green, and Blue wavelengths) of 0.97. This indicates very tight control of any Chromatic Aberration or Spherical Abberation all through the visible light spectrum.
I checked Rigel, Betelgeuse and Sirius visually for any defocused or at-focus ghost color fringing and could not detect any on these very bright stars.
This is the first doublet I've tested of several brands and models of doublets that I've ever seen that result from.
I put the optical tube through a variety of other tests:
In and Out-focused diffraction rings from near-focus out to 18-20 waves of defocus were essentially perfect and on a par with other premium brands of refractors I've tested previously that were triplets, not doublets!
The Feathertouch 3" focuser was mechanically and aesthetically perfect with virually zero lateral drawtube shift or focuser collimation drift when checked with lasers and a magnified test pattern to see errors easier.
When checked with a Takahashi Collimator Scope, the lens set test pattern views showed perfect collimation all the way front to back to the focuser drawtube and focal point.
I've owned and tested several other brands of premium triplet apo refractors. This is the first time I've seen a doublet lens set that could compare to those high-end triplets, but this one really does.
And with this tube being about 4 lbs lighter than similar 5 inch scopes that have heavier triplet lens cells, the easier portability is especially appreciated out in the field on remote setups or with lighter mounts.
Another unique feature that is very seldom seen is the fact that Vic is willing to back up the scope's claimed performance with an interferometry bench test printout provided to each scope's owner. That is a pretty uncommon thing to see in the industry.
The premium companies will do that for you, but typically you'll pay several hundred bucks extra to get that information. It is included automatically with these Stellarvue "X" models without you having to make a special request and pay extra money for it.
Eventually I'll post more complete optical test data with graphs and pics to my website once I have more time to compile it all (compubuild.com/astro). But this SVX127D refractor really stands out to me as "best-in-class" of any doublet I've ever seen including some older premium models of Flourite-lens doublets that were considered the best of their time.
What truly stands out about this scope though is how well it compares to premium TRIPLET apo's. That's something I didn't expect and makes this model something really special.
Thanks,
Wade -
Stop thinking about it and just buy it:-)
Wow! Holy Cow this scope is amazing! I am purely a visual observation guy. I hit up binary stars, star clusters and galaxies the first night and was blown away that a 5 inch doublet scope could deliver such nice contrast and crisp clear views. I had the SXV102T, but caught aperture fever so I decided to go this route and I am not disappointed. I also decided to go with the Stellarvue focuser to save a little money. The focuser is great and smooth. The mechanics are solid. So like I said... stop thinking about it and just get this scope:-)
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SVX127D
I received my Stellarvue SVX127D on December 23 and had "First Light" under rather dismal skies. Since then I had two additional observing sessions (5 Feb and 8 Feb) under cold, crisp skies with above average seeing. I have the SVX127D mounted on my Losmandy G-11...a rather perfectly matched combination. Eyepieces used were TV's: 22mm Panoptic (46x); 10mm Radian (101x); 6mm Ethos (169x); and 3.5mm Nagler (290x).
The Moon was available for viewing early on and to say I was blown away by the crispness and contrast of the lunar features is an understatement! And this is from someone who is used to observing with some top quality long FL Unitron's! Even at 290x using the 3.5mm TV Nagler, features displayed very sharp with very little softening.
Beyond the Moon, my plan was to check out some doubles to test the optics, as well as lots of open star clusters in Canis Major, Monoceros, Gemini, Cancer, Perseus, and Cassiopeia. Standouts were M35, M47, and the double cluster....with a nice field of stars embedded in a perfectly black background. I also viewed M44 using a Brandon 48mm EP at 21x. Quite the view!! I checked out a dozen or so double stars during the evening, but Iota Cas and Zeta Cancri (Tegmine) standout. Iota Cas has always been my favorite triple with its whitish primary and golden and bluish companions. The stars displayed pinpoint. With respect to Tegmine, the AB pair are <1.0 arcsec separated and at 290x the dark split was obvious.
This is my second Stellarvue, my first being an SV110ED. The quality and engineering of both is truly exceptional! Looking forward to many satisfying hours behind the eyepiece.
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SVX127D
Finally some clears skies to try this out! The quality of work put into building this scope really shows. It is beautiful!. Mine is fitted with the SFFX1 field flattener and the first images showed perfect optics and alignment with pinpoint stars across the entire field using an APS-C mono camera. I used it visually on Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, and a couple globular clusters. The views were outstanding at the magnifications I used ranging from 50-200x. My only concern is how far the Stellarvue focuser needed to be racked out to achieve focus. Nearly 3/4 full travel out with the camera and a little over 1/2 with the diagonal and eyepieces. With the length of this scope, it requires some extra caution in setup to make sure there is no crash with the tripod. My first impression is this is a fantastic scope! Great job Stellarvue Team!!!
