Vixen Porta 2

[Bobby1970]

Received my Vixen Porta 2 a few days ago. It was ex-demo from FLO and got it for £206 delivered and was delivered very speedily.

I was planning on getting a Skywatcher AZ4 but the lack of slow motion controls put me off a little so when the Vixen came up i decided it was worth it.

I have only used my old ST102 on it so far but i have to say the mount is a joy to use. I adjusted the clutches until i was happy with the amount of friction. At first when i used my Celestron Xcel eyepiece i found i needed to stiffen the friction up a little as i had it set for using the standard skywatcher eyepieces which came with the scope several years ago and are much smaller and lighter than the Celestron.

I am very impressed at how light the mount is, but it is so stable too. I am also impressed with the height of the mount when the legs are fully extended, seems significantly higher than the Skywatcher GOTO mount i have used previously and therefore less strain on back and neck muscles.

Last night i had the scope/mount out of the garage and set up in the garden in seconds.

Had a general sweep of the skies as its nice and dark where i am at the moment due to it being a new development and none of the street lights are connected up yet.

I ended up visiting the usual suspects of M42, M31, Pleiades, Double cluster and finally Jupiter.

I was happy with the views of all of these targets. Jupiter had lots of CA due to my scope but i pushed the mag and also stopped the scope down using the end cap and could clearly see the main bands and also some of the lesser cloud belts during moments of better seeing.

Its been a while since i have had a chance to use any scope due to moving house twice in six months and was so glad to be back outside but using a mount like the Vixen just made it so simple. I will be keeping my GOTO and may do some planetary astrophotography when my 127 Mak arrives. But for purely visual sessions i can't see how it could get much better (mount wise). I do feel as though the "novelty" of GOTO has worn off a little. Its actually much quicker just to get the Vixen/scope out and have even a quick 30 minutes of observing than faffing around with the goto.

Anyway thats my review of it, such as it is. If anyone else is considering this mount i would highly recommend it.

Clear skies chaps :-)

[Chris]

Nice review! I second your recommendation

[andrew63]

Glad to hear you're pleased with the mount. I think it's one of the best purchases you can make given our weather ! Andrew

[nicoscy]

The Vixen Porta 2 is an excellent mount.

The only two things you can do to improve it are to add long slow motion control handles (reduces vibrations) and get a set of wooden legs (THAT will reduce any vibrations up to a 4" refractor to virtually zero).

Since it gets you out of the door and into quick observation mode, it's a winner!

[completenovice]

Another vote for the Vixen here!

Got mine when FLO had them on offer and it's been the best astro investment I've made to date. I've nicked the slow motion controls off my old EQ1 mount and they fit perfectly and make controlling a good mount even better.

I'm purely into observing and due to things like shift work and the our usual weather problems I have to grab opportunities when I can and speed of setup is a top priority. With the VP2, I can be set up and observing in around 5 minutes so grabbing a half hours viewing is possible and the same with packing it away afterwards which was simply not possible with other mounts.

[Lowjiber]

Nice review. I agree, that's a very nice mount.

My wife uses one sold by ES as the "Twilight I" that is almost identical with the the Vixen Porta II with the exception of steel tripod legs. I was so impressed, that I ditched my older EQ mount for the grab-n-go scope and bought another Twilight I.

That's her below using her mount.

Clear, Dark Skies