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Old 18-02-2022, 03:46 PM
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Swagman105 (Geoff)
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Is this a Flourite?

I started a thread in beginners AP about my stumbling first AP efforts with an 80mm Vixen I picked up cheaply secondhand off gumtree some three years ago.
The telescope and its mount (unworkable) had had obvious hard previous lives. The telescope had fungus issues which I did my best to carefully clean.
Among some of the supportive comments from fellow icers were that the scope was a "keeper" and that I may have secured a bargain despite its hard previous life.
I did indeed keep the Vixen, but never really did get any firm opinion as to what it was. An achromat, an ED or as someone has now suggested to me recently possibly a flourite?
There is just not any identification on the tube and wording on some stickers has just faded off.
So I am putting up some more images of the scope in the hope that someone can shed some light on it, as I would now really like to know for certain.
My original post was "Critique requested" in beginners astrophotograpy about three years ago.
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Old 18-02-2022, 06:35 PM
astro744
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It’s fluorite not flourite. If it was fluorite it would clearly say so likely around lens and on the OTA. It is a selling point so manufacturers clearly label it. I’m not familiar with this telescope so I could be mistaken but I am yet to see a fluorite telescope not labelled fluorite. (Mind you I haven’t seen too many).
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Old 18-02-2022, 06:52 PM
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Swagman105 (Geoff)
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Yes my mistake about the spelling. Should have known better as have in the past used hydrofluoric acid to treat my detected gold specimens.
There are actually labels on the scope as can be seen on the dew shield but they have faded to the point that they are unreadable so it is impossible see what they say or would have said.
I also have had access to a Vixen A80MF Achromat and the views through the unidentified Vixen were much superior. I posted an AP image through the unidentified Vixen in my earlier post in Beginners AP.

Last edited by Swagman105; 18-02-2022 at 06:54 PM. Reason: better description
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Old 18-02-2022, 11:15 PM
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The only Vixen 80mm fluorite I'm aware of was f/8 while their achromats were around f/11. This one is f/9 so it's a mystery. Does its performance give any clues to its glass type?
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Old 19-02-2022, 07:50 AM
rrussell1962
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It's not a Fluorite lens. I think it is an older Vixen ED80S F9, I have the same telescope. I have an old Vixen catalogue which has a little bit (not much at all!) of info about the glass types used. I will dig it out and post what it has later.
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Last edited by rrussell1962; 19-02-2022 at 08:14 AM. Reason: Added S to the model.
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Old 19-02-2022, 07:59 AM
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Swagman105 (Geoff)
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Thanks Russell
That's good to know. It was always a mystery and puts its identity to bed.
I will still be keeping it as my first images with it were a lot better than I expected from a cheap scope.
Would love to get more documentation about it and a picture of what I would have looked like in its prime before it hit hard times.
Thanks Geoff
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Old 19-02-2022, 08:13 AM
rrussell1962
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The only info about the lens in the Catalogue is that it uses an ED lens and a Kruz Flint lens.
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Old 19-02-2022, 08:24 AM
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Here are a couple of pictures of the catalogue page. It was also available on the GPDX mount with HAL110 tripod. Mine is on a GPDX, but I am using a Vixen wood tripod which gives a bit more height.
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Old 19-02-2022, 08:31 AM
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Hi Russell.
Kruz flint was the clue. I pulled up this image from Cloudy nights classic telescopes and that is it.
Vixen ED 80s (80 - 720 Version)
A lovely looking scope in its heyday.
Reading through the Cloudy Nights thread, Could this be the same as yours Russell?
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Last edited by Swagman105; 19-02-2022 at 08:42 AM. Reason: Grammar
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Old 19-02-2022, 08:44 AM
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Shine a green laser through the objective. If you can see the laser in the lens its not fluorite. Flourite lenses have low dispersion so a triplet of lesser glasses but one element of fluorite will show up the laser in the non-fluorite lenses but nothing in the fluorite element.

I have done this myself with a TEC 180 fluorite triplet. You can clearly see the beam in the 2 non fluorite elements and it disappears in the fluorite element.

Its enough to make you want to only use fluorite scopes.

You'll notice that in an astrophoto using a fluorite scope. There will be some faint wisps of nebula that it picks up that other lenses do not as well.

Greg.
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Old 19-02-2022, 09:22 AM
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Russell,
How old do you think this Vixen ED80S is, based on the catalogue etc.???
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Old 19-02-2022, 11:38 AM
rrussell1962
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Hi Geoff, the picture you put up from Cloudy Nights is my Vixen sitting by the pool waiting for dark! I posted the photo on Cloudy Nights in a couple of threads to do with Vixen scopes etc. There is an interesting thread somewhere on Cloudy Nights with somebody in, I think Portugal, who was restoring one.

Hi Ken, Not absolutely certain on the period when those ED80S's were available. I am pretty sure my catalogue is from 2000 - It shows the Skysensor 2000PC as being an option and I picked up the catalogue from Bintel in York Street early in 2000 before leaving Sydney in March of that year. I bought mine from somebody that had originally purchased it in Japan and interestingly it was supplied there with 0.965" fittings - a prism diagonal, a 25mm Vixen Kellner and 2 Vixen Orthoscopics. From memory, please correct me if I am wrong, Vixen started to become fairly well known and more widely available in the early 1990's - that was when I saw a GP102M in the UK, maybe in Broadhurst Clarkson, and couldn't resist. Bintel were a Vixen dealer in the late 1990's as was Astro Optical in Crows Nest. In fact I am fairly sure that Bintel stocked Vixen when they were in the Hunter Arcade in the mid 1990's.

Last edited by rrussell1962; 19-02-2022 at 11:55 AM.
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Old 19-02-2022, 06:13 PM
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Thanks all

Thanks all for their input on this.
I can now change my signature to include the ED80S which I intend to keep. I couldn't get its accompanying GP mount to work, maybe a controller issue, but given its cosmetic condition, it would be problematic for me to consider doing it up to something approaching the lovely appearance of Russell's ED80S.
I posted an image of the Orion nebula that I took with the ED80S a few years ago in a beginners forum. I was pleasantly surprised at its performance given the amount of cleaning necessary to clean the lens of its fungus.
I've reposted the single 30 second image here and of the ZEQ25 I used it on.
Have saved hard since and two weeks ago took delivery of a new Stellarvue SVX102T so will be interested to see how my images with that will compare and whether the difference between the money (ouch) I spent on the Stellarvue over the $100 I spent on the Vixen for has been justified.

Geoff
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