I have been vacillating over this scope for a year. Almost bought it twice, finally did last night. The slight mold issue in the objective put me off, but after contacting Roger and he said it would clean just fine, I went ahead.
The FAR from common Vixen DED108SS 108mm f/5 astrograph - Vixen's attempt to crack into Takahashi's niche FSQ106 market (Vixen failed ). These scopes are now pretty scarce, as the production numbers are SMALL.
The corrected image circle is huge. Look at the size of the drawtube to start with! I will have a light cone made for it like the newer refrac astrographs, rather than the custom made one on there now (which is correctly spaced to a Canon DSLT chip).
Weight is 6kg, so my beloved GPD2 will handle it just fine. Sold my newly acquired MN190 to afford it, but what the heck!
More when it arrives in my eager hands. Hurry up Mr DHL
Well done Lewis !! , I remember when these hit the market and like you said they just quietly faded away .
Looking forward to hearing how it performs , very good I would say going by what I read about these beauties when the first come out .
Brian.
More pics of the ACTUAL scope (you can see the mold behind the objective - not MAJOR, but definitely needs Roger's touch). Nice lot of baffle rings too :
If ANYONE has a manual, period brochure/catalogue WHATEVER about these, PLEASE let me know. I'd love a scanned copy. I can find NOTHING on the net, and Vixen has yet to respond (I have heard I may be waiting indefinitely for ANYTHING from Vixen, worse luck).
If ANYONE has a manual, period brochure/catalogue WHATEVER about these, PLEASE let me know. I'd love a scanned copy. I can find NOTHING on the net, and Vixen has yet to respond (I have heard I may be waiting indefinitely for ANYTHING from Vixen, worse luck).
Have you tried contacting Steve Massey, their agent in Oz?: ASTRO SHOP
Not much info out there Lewis, you might be able to get some from Markus Ludes at APM he had them 12 years ago. Markus posted that he thought they were optically the equal or better than the FSQ.
"
I have the first imported 108 DED in stock. The lens design is an petzval
like the Tele Vue 101. The DED use an full size ED Douplet in front and an
big douplet ED in the giant 4" Focuser.
Backfocuse is rather small.
The scope is designed like FSQ and Pentax 100SDUHF as an astrograph
Optical quality in my unit is rather good , superior to any pentax I saw so
far and superior to any FSQ i saw so far.
Colorcorrection is similar to the 4"F/9 douplet Vixen ED.
If you are looking for the best 6x7 astrograph, than the Vixen 108 DED is
the way to go . If you are looking for pur visual scopes, than you would go
with something else
BIG thanks there Matt! I may contact him and see what he has.
Most dealers I contacted had no idea it even existed.
As to the similarity to the TV 101, I read on another refractor forum that there is a destinct reason why the TV101 and the 108 share identical designs... remembering a LOT of the TV EP's are made by Vixen under contract to TV... ahem....
IT's in my sweaty hands.... it is a VERY nice scope - beautiful glass, MASSIVE focuser. VERY smooth R&P (looks adaptable too - a few screw holes etc).
The mold spore is GONE after a 5 minute UV bathing in SEQ's HARSH UV index today, so will leave it alone for now, and store it with silica gel packs. WIlliam included some very professionally made adapters too, so almost set for AP right from the get go (I do want a specific light cone with rotator made... that'll go to Ubique )
EXTREMELLY happy. Now to star test it tonight... first up will be The Jewel Box just to get colour and collimation checked out.
And yes, I took a deep breath, and cleaned the rear face of the objective.
6 locking screws around the objective cell perimeter, then unscrew it as usual (after I marked the original position of course). Blew it with a squeezie blower, then carefully wiped with hydrogen peroxide (6%, not usual 3%), to kill and neutralise the mold, which was not really any longer visible, but I wanted to make SURE. Polished off, and reassembled. And now the objective is that gorgeous green again.
Of course, it is now cloudy, so will be content to view distant trees for tonight
). These scopes are now pretty scarce, as the production numbers are SMALL. 
.
look forward to hearing how you get on with it.
