This review, “Head of the glass,” appeared in the October 2006 issue of Astronomy magazine
Today we enjoy a greater variety of telescope designs and levels of sophistication than ever before, but several niches seem to be consistently more popular than others. Among them are 4-inch apochromatic refractors.
Recently, I observed through the 4-inch f/6.4 SV4 apochromatic refractor from Stellarvue Telescopes. At the heart of the SV4 is LOMO’s fully multicoated objective. Made with three air-spaced lens elements, including a Super ED center element, the objective suppresses residual chromatic aberration, which would otherwise impact image quality. The advanced design also goes a long way to eliminating astigmatism, coma, spherical aberration, and other optical imperfections.
Stellarvue offers two levels of the SV4. Both feature the same optical components, sliding dew caps, thread-on dust caps, and removable tube sections that let owners add a binocular viewer without an auxiliary focus-compensator lens (more about this innovation later).
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