Vixen LVW replacer on the way?

[YKSE]

40% discount on the LVW in Japan,

http://www.kyoei-tokyo.jp/shopbrand/015/002/X

My wild guess is  successor coming, other better ideas?

[John]

40% discount on the LVW in Japan,

http://www.kyoei-tokyo.jp/shopbrand/015/002/X

My wild guess is  successor coming, other better ideas?

Quite possibly. Something made by the manufacturer that is producing the excellent SLV's perhaps ?

The premium wide angle / long eye relief niche is tough to excell in with the Delos and XW now well established and the ES 68's mixing in there too.

A 70 degree eyepiece with the optical quality of the SLV and a price somwhat less than £200 would be interesting from Vixen though.

For some reason I don't see Vixen setting it's sights on the ultra or hyper wide market though, but you never know.

[pete_gamby]

Vixen showed a proposed replacement range for the LVW series at Photokina last year (poor quality pic posted below).

The specification quoted at the time indicated an 83 degree FOV and focal lengths of 3.5, 5, 10, 12 and 14mm. We're still waiting for confirmation on price and availability...

By the way, the SRP on the LVWs has been reduced effective today - I'm sure Steve from FLO will post info soon.

HTH

Cheers, Pete

[John]

Excellent Pete - thanks for the information. I wonder if they have found a way of maintaining decently long eye relief as well as delivering an 83 degree AFoV ?

Exciting prospect

Not that the LVW's aren't very nice eyepieces of course.

[Mr Spock]

A 10mm - my wish has been granted! If it's as good as an LVW that is

[pete_gamby]

The ones on show at Photokina had the same multi-stage twist p eyecup as the SLV range so I would hazard a guess that the eyerelief profile will be similar.

Cheers, Pete

[FLO]

We received an email this morning confirming once current stock (in Japan) has sold out, the Vixen LVW series will be discontinued. 

Some focal lengths have already gone and others are in short supply. 

Vixen-UK are speaking with Vixen-Japan hoping to achieve the same discount on remaining stock that is clearly being offered to Japanese retailers. If they succeed you will be the first to know  

HTH, 

Steve 

[John]

I've found another photo of these new Vixen 83 degree eyepieces. These could be very interesting. Same focal lengths as the shorter Pentax XW's

[nightfisher]

They look nice, John, i hope you get to review a set

[John]

...., i hope you get to review a set....

That would be lovely Jules

I've found some Japanese text on them part of which tranlates, via Google Translate, to "...Although eye relief is unknown, from the fact that seen port adopts the pop-up, you can infer that there is at least 15mm or more...."

I reckon "seen port" means eye lens / eye cup.

[alan potts]

Any possibilty they are made by the same optical company and just dressed different, if so I am not a fan of the clothes designer, different colours for focal lengths is a bit meaningless to me. Like the Pentax idea and others with the same design different numbers approach.

[Mr Spock]

Yeah, colours look good until you reach for them in the dark...

[John]

Any possibilty they are made by the same optical company and just dressed different, if so I am not a fan of the clothes designer, different colours for focal lengths is a bit meaningless to me. Like the Pentax idea and others with the same design different numbers approach.

I reckon they are from the same source as the SLV's which bodes well for performance. Vixen do occasionally re-brand things but also come up with their own designs which they contract others to produce. I hope these are the latter, they claim to be a new design.

The LWV's were an original Vixen design as were the LV's. The former were cloned by the Chinese and picked up by Baader in the form of the Hyperions but the performance of the Baader branded copies does not quite match that of the LVW's when I compared them, especially in faster scopes.

As for the colour scheme, green and black looks like black and black at night as well !

[alan potts]

Very true green and black looks the same in the dark, I just prefer the lack of Versace colour scheme when in the case. I am sure I have a shirt with all those colours on that would have bought a top line eyepieces today.

[Chris]

I'm liking the sound of all this, both the new lineup and possibly significantly cheaper LVW's.

I don't mind the colour too much, I think we were due a colourful rendition from Vixen:

- LV's - colour coded

- NLV - numbered

- LVW - colour coded (I think?)

- SLV - numbered 

- Now the SSWs ? very colour coded

Now if these have the optical quality of the SLV's with 83 degrees and good eye relief then it would be, well, I think that would be too good to be true! 

price? I'm guessing 200-220 pounds.

They look very compact, should give the TV Delite a run for there money! 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very interesting development. I think I might try a 14mm. I somehow miss that focal length since replacing the Meade 14mm UWA (not enough eye relief) with a Nagler 12T4. The jump from 17 to 12mm is a bit big, sometimes (luxury problem, I know!)

[John]

These eypeieces have colour in their designs but it does not seem to have damaged their reputation too much 

Not as bad as Alans shirt though

NB: I reckon there is around £5K's worth of eyepieces in that picture - thats a lot of shirts, even expensive ones.

[alan potts]

I have got a good few other multi couloured shirts but that one will be a tester even for the man that invented loud, sad that some idiot killed him.

The eyepiece that Michael was talking of was the Mk1 Meade S 5000 14mm UWA, I had one and it was a superb piece of kit, the later eyepiece was not as good. I was only thinking the other day of getting the 5mm version of the LVW and a Nagler 5mm fell in my hand, I really wish I could get to a star party and see some of the other eyepieces, I think this is why I tend to stick to the premium marques, fear of buying second best.

Alan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

A key difference between those horrendously costly ones and the Vixen SSWs is that the latter don't incur the cost of an operation to attach the EP directly to your cornea

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have got a good few other multi couloured shirts but that one will be a tester even for the man that invented loud, sad that some idiot killed him.

The eyepiece that Michael was talking of was the Mk1 Meade S 5000 14mm UWA, I had one and it was a superb piece of kit, the later eyepiece was not as good. I was only thinking the other day of getting the 5mm version of the LVW and a Nagler 5mm fell in my hand, I really wish I could get to a star party and see some of the other eyepieces, I think this is why I tend to stick to the premium marques, fear of buying second best.

Alan

It was a Mark-I Series 5000, indeed. Up there with the Naglers even in a 20" F/4.1 Dobson. If only they had been able to give it 1mm more eye relief

[John]

I sometimes feel I've missed out by having tried so little Meade equipment during my 30+ years in the hobby

Back in the days when I was carefully choosing my eyepieces based on others reporting, Meade seemed to consistently just loose out a bit to the Tele Vue equivilents so, as both were expensive products back then, I went for the black and green.

[Mr Spock]

I've used a couple of Meade Plössls - a 32mm Series 4000 I still have and a Series 4000 6.4mm which I sold some time ago. I found both of them excellent. I would like to try the 82° Meades some time.

[John]

I've used a couple of Meade Plössls - a 32mm Series 4000 I still have and a Series 4000 6.4mm which I sold some time ago. I found both of them excellent. I would like to try the 82° Meades some time.

I bought a Meade 4000 6.4mm brand new from Telescope House for £79 which is what they cost in 1998. I also splashed out at the same time on the 4000 series SWA's in 18mm and 24.5mm focal lengths at £159 and £199 apiece. The 6.4mm had a mushy field stop and did not compare well to the 7.4mm TV plossl I also had at the time. So that went back and I changed it for a 6mm Circle-T ortho plus some cash back. The 4000 SWA's were OK in my F/10 scopes I had back then but still showed some astigmatism at the field edges which I was dissapointed with given their price. So I sold those.

So £437 invested for what I thought even back then were mediocre products. At that time my budget for astro was quite tight so I definitely felt as if my fingers had been burned and I've never felt quite the same about Meade products since

I reckon Telescope House made a big mistake going "all Meade" in the early 2000's although it made their catalogue much easier to produce I guess.

I started to study the reports in magazines and online and within a couple of months I'd picked up a set of used TV wide fields from the USA and the 4.8mm and 7mm Nagler T2's. The start of my TV addiction 

[alan potts]

I would and do recommend the Series 5000 UWA and SWA to people on site, in slow scopes you really have to look to see any faults against similar TeleVues. Going faster shows them up a little more but well acceptable to most, even me. The series 4000 range though that I have seen do not like fast scopes and at the time I only had the M/N 190mm at F5.26, tidy enough in the SC F10 though.

Yong, Sorry I have gone a bit of subject.

Alan

[John]

....Yong, Sorry I have gone a bit of subject.

So have I - sorry Yong

Excited about these new Vixen's though