Excelsis - Display Vote

TeleVue Genesis SDF

This was my first serious scope, I chose this style over an SCT due to the better images it produces. The good points about this scope are: Excellent images, contrasty, short cool down / setup time, rock solid/stable Gibralter mount. The bad points: The short focal legnth makes you use very small eyepieces to get any serious magnification (i.e. 2.5mm), so you will have to buy expensive eyepieces, like Naglers, to be able to comfortably use it at high magnification with a decent FOV, at about $250 - $300 per eyepiece that gets expensive quick. Also, I am not a fan of the alt-az style mount and think that is a bad choice for this scope. I was looking at Mars with my 4mm eyepiece, and by the time I was able to focus, it was out of my FOV. An GEM mount would have been a better choice to follow Mars accross the sky. I found out how valuable a tracking mount is after this experience. I returned my scope out of frustration, and am will be looking for a MOTORIZED mounted scope next. What good is a great scope if you don't look forward to using it, hope this helps.

Overall Rating: 7
Optics:9 Mount:7 Ease of Use:4 Value:7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date: 11/26/2003 08:02:31 am PST
By: Anonymous (xxx.xxx.255.115)
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=322137

I found it noteworthy that all the TV 4" scopes had consistent ratings with the exception of the sdf. I now know why. I find the "4" rating for ease of use here misleading. The reviewer has obviously never owned an alt/az mount before, and spent most of his time condeming it. That was misplaced. This area is reserved for the scope, not the Gibraltar mount. Most TV owners love theirs anyway. Take this rating out and the numbers likely fall back into line where they should be.

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