John

Super Tak setup Matt 4" and 5" are great apertures for fracs - I seem to have arrived at similar apertures myself !

A frac is a frac Jules and welcome in this thread Is it a secret or have I missed a post elsewhere on your forthcoming arrival ?

A foot in both the ES and TV camps Dave - very nice cases ! Oops - I nearly missed the Baaders - thats 3 feet !

Very Nice Mark ! I expect some folks will wonder why others are parting with £1.5-£2 K for a 3.9" scope. I guess we need to take a leaf out of Mike's book and report what we see through them as often as we can to explain

Wow !!! Put a quality 4" scope in the hands of a skilled observer and look what happens !!!

I've used Powermates with my Ethos eyepieces. They produce the equivilent of the shorter length but don't add any other side effects apart from their weight. I've also used an Antares 1.6x 2" barlow and a Meade 2" 2x Telextender in the same role. The results were good but the Powermate is the best solution that I have used. There are a couple of other top end focal extender options including the Astro Physics Barcon and something from Zeiss (I think) but these are hard to find and I've not used them.

I've noticed the Opticstar ones but they are listed as "out of stock" currently. I'll mail them and see if they can get any more. Cheers

Very nice Tak ! If you want to try some white light solar with your Tak (to compliment the H-Alpha scope) the Lunt Herschel Wedge works really well with it - great surface details I think I've already asked this question but where did you source the tube rings for it ?

What I guess would be interesting would be to know what the tolerances for the tests are, ie: how much varience from "ideal" is OK ? Ultimately it would also be interesting to know the rejection rate for the various models and brands but I guess others have 1st dibs on that information ! It's a good initiative though and I appleaud FLO for introducing it

Superb ! I'm sure Peter will be pleased to see them so well sorted. Those eyepieces are just saying "look though me"

@Alan White: I'm glad you like them and that my report was some use. @Moonshane: Shane, I seem to recall that they reach focus a little further in than a TV plossl but not as far in as a Baader GO. Not very precise but the best I can do from memory !

Superb Steve These long refractors do make some demands on mounts but they also reward the effort and cost when you do get them properly sorted. I've chickened out with my 5" and gone for one that is just F/9.25 A "poodle" as Neil English has reminded me, while yours is a true Bulldog

Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/255080-vixen-ssw-ultra-wide-angle-eyepieces-review/ I'd be interested to hear wht GreyRaptor thinks of them as well

I used to use just a Telrad / Red dot finder. With a Telrad it's very useful to have a star chart and to make an acetate overlay with the 4, 2 and .5 degree circles of the Telrad marked on it. You can then overlay that onto the star field where your target lies and get a good idea of reasonably bright stars that you can position within the Telrad rings and note where your target object will be in relation to them.

Welcome to the forum. They are very fine scopes when properly sorted. The pictures show one that may be fine or it may not. If there are any issues with it getting them sorted could prove pretty difficult because they are not produced any more (as far as I know) and there are very few owners out there. Unless you have some previous experience of scopes of this design I would recommend considering something more mainstream. It might help if you could introduce yourself in a new thread and outline your interests in the hobby so that some suggestions of equipment that might suit you can be made.

Nice set of eyepieces ! You don't see many folks using the Vixen SSW's.

My Tak FC-100DL out tonight. 1st split of Rigel this season and hoping for more Orion delights later

Wonderful craftsmanship Welcome to the forum by the way !

I can't recall whether I've posted this - my Tak FC100DL in white light solar mode:

Some good stuff in there - I like UWAN's as well I found the 4mm UWAN an excellent high power eyepiece with the ultra wide field a bonus for those of us who have to track manually.

Probably a good move to change it if you didn't like it. The ES 24 / 68 eyepieces are excellent, show as much sky as a 32mm plossl, darker background sky (if you have some light pollution) and are less expensive than the TV plossl. Well worth considering I reckon

I've almost always bought my Tele Vues on the used market to be honest - they are very expensive now to buy new. The Nagler 31mm is now £600+ and Ethos 21 £800+ to buy new - try not to get a taste for such things

Yep, a single extender did the trick for me and I don't wear eyeglasses when observing. The extender made the 32mm TV plossl a very comfortable and relaxing eyepiece to use.

Funny thing is, if you take the Vixen .965" orthos apart, you find an optical layout very close to a plossl (ie: 2+2 elements) rather than the 3+1 layout of the abbe ortho. They still work nicely though.

Ah, the Vixen .965" orthos ! - I had some of those with my old Vixen SP102M. The ZJ ones are very nice too !