Excelsis - Display Vote

Borg 76ED

I was asked to test this refractor (new, received by a potential french re-seller) as on the picture. I don't own it. The concept is interesting, because it's light and easy to carry around.

Frankly what I tested frightened me. A test on a polychromatic source at 300m (~300 yards) showed that the optics were not collimated: both lenses had moved in the cell, yet I was unable to change this fact. The eyepiece turret is crap: in the best case (objective properly collimated), the flip mirror prevents you to use it on axis, therefore diminishing performances. The mount is a joke: you can't use it above 60Â° elevation, or you have to set it up as an "equatorial" in which case the OTA will never be balanced. I will not even mention the purveyed tripod: its only redeeming quality is its lightness, but, unfortunately, it also does a great job as a diapason. Sure it's a light refractor, but I would have preferred a metallic collar to fix it on the mount. The only mechanical part which was OK was the helicoidal focuser.

On the sky (I tested this refractor on a local hill, 5500ft elevation), thanks to the wonderful properties of the tripod (and the mount isn't far behind), viewing a planet at high power was a nightmare (9mm UO Abbe Ortho + x3 Intes Barlow). If that wasn't enough I will also add that the glow around Saturn was enormous. It did a better job on M42 (30mm Clave PlÃ¶ssl, or 14mm UO Koenig), the view was even pleasant... if you are enough of a stoic to remain on your knees thanks to the small size of the purveyed tripod.

My verdict: Certainly my objective wasn't very good and I do hope that other objectives were better. Yet I do not play russian roulette: if my objective wasn't very good, chances are that others were not better. This added to the mechanical nightmares I encountered are enough for me to justify the poor ratings I gave to this refractor.

Overall Rating: 0
Optics:0 Mount:0 Ease of Use:1 Value:0
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date: 02/03/2003 07:08:54 am PST
By: Anonymous (xxx.xxx.7.62)
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=187455

Just do me a favor and keep writing such trenchant anaslyes, OK?

"A test on a polychromat ic source at 300m (~300 yards) showed that the optics were not collimated: both lenses had moved in the cell"

You based your scathing review on a scope that was obviously out of collimation??  
Just because you couldn't change it doesn't mean it can't be done.  And by the way- do you even know how it lost collimation?  Perhaps your French friend screwed it up somehow-
I highly reccomend that you at least try to review a scope that is functioning as it is designed to- that's what this site is for!  Not to bitch about how your scope is "broken"

Frankly your review 'frightens me'-  I give it a zero.

And no, I don't own one of these.o

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