This work has been carried out to find the ideal operating conditions for solar vacuum tube collectors which are widely used at present. Various types of solar collectors including a flat plate one were experimentally tested and examined to determine their thermal efficiencies and operating characteristics. Generally, solar vacuum tubes can be classified into two groups according to their design features. Of these, one is characterized by the insertion of a metallic device(such as a finned heat pipe) in an evacuated glass tube for the collection and transportation of solar energy. The other utilizes double glass tubes where the smaller one is contained inside the bigger one and soldered to each other after the small gap between them is evacuated. Both of these solar collectors are designed to minimize convection heat losses by removing the air which is in direct contact with the absorber surface. The performance of the former type can be readily analyzed by applying the relevant correlations developed for flat plate solar collectors. This has been demonstrated in the present study for the case of a solar collector where a heat pipe is inserted in an evacuated tube.