Dream scope

[LewisM]

My dream telescope just arrived after MUCH anticipation, stomping around the house impatiently waiting like an expectant father....

Vixen FL102S - they stopped making these around 2003. I had heard they are good - REALLY good - but seeing is believing, and now I have seen, and I believe!!!!!!!!!

Looks like the weather is improving here for first light tonight... just give me 4 hours oh Astronomy Gods... just 4 hours at least

Now a 2/3 Vixen stable, with only the ED80 being the black sheep May sell that to afford some more Vixen accessories

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Nice one Lewis ...Japanese Quality.

Flash ..!!

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

I second that as well , These Vixen's are as good as anything out there including Tak , AP , and the likes , good score Lewis .
Brian.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

You want some eyepiece's to go with that ..!!
Vixen Lanthanum Glass Eyepieces ..!!

Flash ..!!

[LewisM]

My Pentax eyepieces work JUST fine thank you

[Kunama]

Is it the one Melinda had on Cloudy?
In any case a very nice scope, it is a "keeper" Lewis !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[LewisM]

Yup. Melinda/Ian was the previous. She's done the rounds here on Iceinspace - Ian, Brett, Beren, Lars... all of them deeply regretting selling it! I don't intend selling it!I was aligning the finderscope today on a tree that I use about 800m away. With the Pentax 20mm in her, I watched a tree snake in the tree, EASILY seeing details and colour variance in the snake!!! It's not a great scope - it is a SUPERLATIVE scope and truly a case where quality romps all over aperture. I reckon every bit as good as a Takahashi - maybe even better

Not sure I like the Moonlight focuser on it - I insisted Ian included the original focuser which is truly VERY VERY nice, despite what many have said on the earlier Vixen focusers. I found it holds a LOT of weight without flexing or moving too, so more than adequate for the Canon 5D Mk II, using the Vixen wide ring etc.

I am going to image tonight with the R200SS and then give the FL102 a shot on visual on Jupiter and M42. I might even persuade myself to have a crack imaging in the 102 - Brett took many images with it.

No Matt, it's NOT for sale. NEVER! It's a scope I could NEVER tire of, nor expect to upgrade.

[wulfgar]

The Vixen 102 FL is one of the classic lineup's from the late 1980's that popularized the APO and "semi-APO". It was the Renaissance of the high contrast scope after wandering in the wilderness of light buckets and SCT's.
I ran into the OTA S/H in a Telescope shop back in 1996. 10 mins after I bought it another guy showed up wanting it, his jaw dropping to the floor as he saw it sitting there.
This must have been been a very short shelf life scope.

First sight was Jupiter sparkling like a gem against an inky black sky at 120x. Never had seen that sort of contrast before.

I was told that fluorite cells for Vixen and Takahashi were both manufactured on the same Canon assembly line. But the lightweight Vixen tube is a special quality in world of heavy metal apo's.

Mine's the earlier 900mm focal length triplet with a smaller visual back that only allows 1.25" EP's.

[lhansen (Lars)]

Congratulations

The scope is so good that everyone who ends up owning it wants more (aperture) of the same kind. Do not succumb. I've been receiving treatment for the last 3 years and to no avail. Lock the doors, don't go on the Internet and hunker down

You have been warned!

[wulfgar]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Now a 2/3 Vixen stable, with only the ED80 being the black sheep May sell that to afford some more Vixen accessories

You might be giving ED too bad a rap. There's low end ED used in the Synta and a variety of cheaper products. And high end ED used by the famous name fabricators.
Curious that Vixen has the Synta 80ED and 100ED badged with their own label. And their more home grown counterparts which I assume use high end ED in their doublet crowns. The ED81s and ED103s, both which a priced at double the Synta counterpart. At F7.7 the ED103s has gone the way of the compromised photo/visual. And now they got a new model the AX103s that has a basic triplet with an inbuilt field flatterer, advertising itself as made out of the "fabled" FPL - 53 variety of ED. But again this latest instrument is very much the compromised photo/visual.
The ED100 appears it might offer some good visual refractor bang for buck and at F9 in would make an interesting comparison with the 102 Fluorite F9.
The Vixen Fluorite offers fine contrast with a single airy disk ring that's like a thin spiders web around around the central airy disk. Further airy disk rings get so little light that they just aren't visible in the Fluorite.
The Synta ED100 with its lower end ED I could assume would offer CA in league with a classic 4" F15. This would result in airy disk rings that are colored and much, much thicker than that of the Fluorite.