[Dennis]

VC200L

• Optimised for wide field astrophotography, such that stars at the edge are fairly tight with little evidence of coma. For large chip DSLR’s this is probably very important. For small CCD chips where you are only using the centre of the FOV then less important.
• Limited back focus. I could not achieve focus with an off axis guider (Taurus Tracker II) and my Pentax 35mm film SLR.
• Limited range of 3rd party accessories.
• Mine had nice optics, somewhere between my C9.25 and my Mewlon 180, although this is a highly subjective guess based on last using my VC200L some 7 or 8 years ago.
• When prime mirror requires re-coating, you need to ship it back to Vixen. I heard of one owner who had his mirror re-coated locally and it ruined the figure, and his investigations led him to believe that the process that Vixen uses contributes to the final shape/correction of the prime mirror.

C9.25

• Probably need to use a Reducer/Corrector for wide fields.
• Rare to have back focus problems.
• Vast range of 3rd party accessories.
• Nullify effects of image shift by using a 3rd party Crayford focuser, e.g. Moonlite, JMI, etc.

Cheers

Dennis