Overview
The SVBONY SV225 mount is an alt-azimuth mount that pivots left to right and up/down—unlike the more complicated motions of the equatorial mount supplied with many beginner telescopes.
You can either grab the end of your telescope’s tube to move it around, or there’s a small handle that threads into the altitude axis to aim the SV225 like a camera tripod head. Unlike a camera tripod head, however, the fork arm design of the SV225 keeps your telescope suspended at the center of gravity, ensuring smooth motions regardless of how high you are aimed in the sky.
All you have to do to attach your telescope to the SV225 is slide its Vixen dovetail into the SV225’s saddle and move the telescope (either by sliding the dovetail or the telescope itself in its rings) until it is properly balanced forward-backward. From there, the SV225 handles pretty much like a Dobsonian, but with the added bonuses of being able to lock the clutches and use its fine-adjustment cables for precision pointing/tracking. If you don’t have a dovetail already, almost any telescope has ¼-20 bolt holes on its body or tube rings, and you can obtain a rail for less than $25 from SVBONY and other manufacturers.
For fine adjustment, the SV225 has industry-standard slow-motion cables. These have fairly little backlash and work well enough out of the box, but taking the mount apart (easily accomplished with the provided hex wrench) and lubricating the surfaces with high-quality grease definitely improves things.
The single-arm design of the SVBONY SV225 isn’t the stiffest compared to a Dobsonian, but it can hold a surprisingly large payload. Most of the time, I use my 6” f/4 Newtonian and 2” accessories on the SV225, which altogether weigh about 12 lbs—about ideal for this setup. You can put a Celestron C8 on (15 lbs with accessories), and I have tried this too, but even with a robust tripod attached to the SV225, the head itself just isn’t the steadiest. So the limit for this mount is really a 6” Newtonian/Cassegrain, a 4” triplet refractor, or maybe a 5” doublet refractor.
You can change the angle of the SV225’s arm to give greater clearance with longer telescopes, particularly Newtonians and refractors. To do this, you just loosen a single hex screw that holds the arm to the base of the mount and move the arm to one of the available positions. Tilting the arm decreases stability, but it’s necessary with anything but the shortest optical tubes if you want to be able to aim straight overhead.
Tripods
The SV225T tripod SVBONY sells for the SV225 has 1.25” diameter steel legs, which is plenty for this setup. If you have a Celestron AstroMaster, you should be able to adapt the tripod from that to the SV225 as well. The SV225 can also fit most tripods meant for EQ3/4/5-class equatorial mounts.
If you already own a tripod or are thinking of a third-party one for the SV225, you really have to use your own judgement. A tiny apo refractor or 4.5” f/4 Newtonian is obviously going to work on a much lighter-duty tripod than a 6” f/5 Newtonian or C8. But anything will fit to the bottom of the SV225 provided it has a ⅜” stud. If you’re on a tight budget, it’s very easy to adapt a surveyor tripod to the SV225.
My Experience with the SVBONY SV225
I bought the SV225 with my own money off Amazon Prime in May 2025 to use with my 6” f/4.3 Newtonian telescope, which I originally made in 2017. I previously used it as a tabletop Dob and on an equatorial mount, neither of which was particularly comfortable or convenient to use with this instrument. I had considered the Explore Scientific Twilight I, but my friend’s experience with it and his 6” f/5 made me question its stability. I figured that, in the worst case, I could return the SV225 to Amazon.
After experimenting with a few different tripods, I ended up putting it on a 1950s Linhof, which is a great match with my 6” Newtonian. This mount has been great for me to use both in my backyard and from a dark sky site. Even with the scope loaded up with a 2” coma corrector and eyepieces, it’s quite solid.
I have also tried the Celestron C6 XLT and C8 XLT optical tubes on the SV225—the C6 was fine, but the C8 was a little wobbly owing to its size and weight, which are pushing the limits of the mount’s capacity.
How the SVBONY SV225 compares to other products
The Explore Scientific Twilight I is the only mount regularly available on the market that compares to the SV225 in terms of features and general design. If you’re using a very small telescope, SVBONY sells the SV225 Mini, which is more compact but offers less vertical clearance for longer tubes.
- Celestron Heavy Duty Alt-Azimuth Tripod—The Celestron tripod, like photographic fluid heads, has the center of rotation below where your telescope goes. This makes it unstable and jerky.
- Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi—The GTi offers automatic tracking and GoTo capabilities, but its manual movements are really quite poor, and it cannot hold nearly as big of a telescope as the SV225.
- Explore Scientific Twilight I—The Twilight I has slightly smoother motions than the SV225, but it is nowhere near as rigid due to the design of the arm, which is problematic when using heavier telescopes like a 6”. They do also tend to go out of stock more often.
- Explore Scientific Twilight Nano—The Twilight Nano lacks the SV225’s slow-motion controls and is really only suitable for telescopes up to around 4” in aperture.
Should you buy a used SVBONY SV225?
The SV225 hasn’t been on the market for very long, so used ones aren’t too common. However, as long as the mount is in good shape, there’s nothing wrong with buying a used one. Apart from severe corrosion, there’s not much that can go wrong with something this simple.
