John

56 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

What brand, what year ?

Well this is a "show us your Vixen ..." thread so that sorts the brand out. The year would be somewhere in the mid 1980's I reckon.

2 hours ago, 900SL said:

Conversely, the DPAC testing appears to have cast SV in a bad light (a most appropriate expression, I must say ) regardless of the facts that their scopes are well made, and appear to perform admirably at smaller apertures.

Bias works in mysterious ways..

And that particular DPAC tester had quite a long track record of knocking SV products .......

24 minutes ago, Alan White said:

 

To be honest so many optics are now excellent, that the incremental ‘improvement’ in cost can be challenging to spot.

 

 

Steve at FLO told me quite some time back that in his opinion Synta (and presumably other similar manufacturers) had the capability produce scopes to rival the very best available, should they wish and probably undercut the costs of some of the prestige brands as well. Exciting times 😀

16 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Your reviews of the SW ED 150 saved me quite a bit of money, John 👍🏻

I had been itching to get one from the time they were first announced…….😊

Actually those experiences did not put me off the ED150 and I might well be tempted by one at some point. I'd pick it up personally though and get it Es Reid checked 😏

I was loaned a Pentax XW 30 and a Nirvana 28mm by FLO a few years back to compare for a few weeks with my Nagler 31. All great eyepieces I thought and I could have lived with any of them 🙂

Interesting report 🙂

Of course it was mostly confirmation or expectation bias that you were seeing, apparently 😜

2 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

It's only a thread-on Barlow lens, though, which might be an issue in a star diagonal for all the 2"/1.25" eyepieces out there when used as 2" eyepieces.

In my case I had a chopped down barrel on my VIP barlow, to avoid just that. I think that is the approach being used that in the photo that @jetstreamposted in the original post in this thread.

5 hours ago, jetstream said:

I wonder what kind of bias this introduces !

Little or none, other than increasing FLO's good reputation a little further 🙂

To their credit I was given complete freedom to post what I felt about the items, good and bad.

Probably unfeasible for FLO to enable this now - they are a somewhat larger and much busier organisation these days 🙂

It did cause a few comments from my other half when all these packages arrived though - I had to explain more than once that I had not just gone out and blown our holiday money without consulting her ! Things didn't get any better when the Skywatcher ED150 was sent in it's huge aluminium case followed by a 2nd one because the 1st had been knocked in transit 🙄

Fun times though 😀

1 hour ago, Mr Spock said:

Perhaps of more concern than Conformation Bias is Expectation Bias. This can manifest itself in two ways: firstly we may spend a lot of money on something and consider it better because that's what we expect; secondly it can occur when an observer sees something they expect to see rather than what is actually there.

Unconscious bias exists in all sorts of forms. Everyone has biases. If you don't, you are probably six foot under... 

One way around this on forums is when a forward thinking supplier such as FLO provides equipment on a loan basis to members to try out and report back on. When I used to do comparative eyepiece reports on this forum, the eyepieces that I discussed had been loaned to me by FLO so I had no vested interest in them.

When FLO introduced the Starfield 102 ED's they stated that they were manufactured by United Optics which, I believe, is based in China:

About United Optics (united-optics.com)

That is why I mentioned Chinese rates of pay in my post.

FLO did say that the glass was Japanese though. Whether the objectives arrive completed or are cut, ground, polished etc by UO, I'm not sure. 

21 minutes ago, jetstream said:

Rumour around the campfire is .......

It's good to know that the Chinese manufacturers join in these "campfire" chats and reveal their secrets 🙂

Blimey !!! - and I used to think that I was an "occularholic" 🙄

Something about the Leica zoom and the VIP and all the faffing with extensions etc, etc put me off using it, so off they went to a more appreciative home.

The performance was excellent though, I can't argue with that 🙂 

Looking at the comparative prices of these instruments, the Takahashi is 3 times the price of the Starfield 102. 

I don't know how much effort goes into the manufacture of these scopes but currently the average wage in Japan, where the Takahashi is made, is about 4 times as much as it is in China, where the Starfield is made. 

Such a difference is bound to impact the retail cost of these products and their comparative quality, with the advantage being strongly towards the Chinese product I would think ?

NB: this is not in any way intended to be a political comment, it is merely factual (based on current data) which, IMHO, is likely to have a material impact on the relative costs of these telescopes.

3 minutes ago, Paz said:

.....I believe I can't get anything better and so it is all down to me and my ability to get the best out of them. This means I'm totally focused on enjoying observing and I'm not thinking about what other kit I might use.

I think that is a good objective to have. Get the best that one can and then practice, practice, practice to get the very best out of it that the conditions and other "wobbly stack" factors will allow.

It is quite satisfying to think, sometimes, that the view one is getting is likely to be as good as any equipment can give within the constraints of the aperture, observing conditions and ones own ability. 

30 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

..... It's easy to doubt, but we shouldn't!

I don't doubt you or others Mike but unless I am convinced at what I have seen, I continue to question my own observations. I find that is the best way, for me.

Amazing stuff above from @mikeDnight

People like Mike must have better eyes than me. I've observed Mercury and Venus quite often over the 40 years that I've been at this and I've never seen any detail that I was at all confident in on their surfaces. Similarly for Uranus and Neptune 🤔

I've no doubts that really dedicated and skilled observers such as Mike can see details on these worlds though. I'm just not one of them 🙄

Mirror-wise I think the GSO made Stellalyras are about the same as the Synta made Skywatcher dobs in terms of optical quality.

The Stellalyras have a number of nice features, as identified by @cajen2 above, which explains and justifies the price difference.

34 minutes ago, Littleguy80 said:

I’m now the very lucky owner of this Leica Zoom. I sold my Baader zoom and Pentax XF zoom to help fund it. Can’t wait to try it out. I suspect it’s going to be best friends with my Baader VIP Barlow too. 

Congratulations Neil 🙂

When I had one I found the link in this post by @YKSE very helpful in working out the magnification combinations:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/214729-baader-vip-barlow/?do=findComment&comment=2300139

Interesting.

I use a Baader T2 Zeiss prism diagonal with my FC100-DL F/9 and it works really well. I also have 2 inch Tele Vue and Astro Physics mirror diagonals but I've not seen any significant differences one way or the other when comparing them with the T2 prism unit. Mostly I use the prism with the DL and 1.25 inch eyepieces and reserve the 2 inch mirror diagonals for when I want to use my 2 inch eyepieces. I fancy that the smaller form of the T2 prism suits the slim lines of the DL rather better but that is rather a superficial point of view 🙄

It will be interesting to hear what, if any, differences you see when you compare the T2 prism with the 2 inch clicklock 🙂

When bright targets are low atmospheric dispersion can cause some false colour of course but I guess you know that. I'm a little surprised that your DF shows any false colour around the moon - I thought they were pretty much colour free at focus ?

Good to see this thread back again - I was a bit worried when it vanished for a while 🙂

I've owned a 100mm Takahashi (and the  130mm TMB/LZOS that I got at the same time) for 7 years now and enjoyed the experience but it has not been "game changing" as regards my enjoyment of astronomy. 

One of the things about the Takahashi brand is that, although quite expensive, it is fairly readily available for purchase. 

I would one day like to try an Astro Physics refractor but they cost even more, rarely come on the used market (which tells us something !) and the waiting list / lottery system for new ones is rather off putting 🙄

58 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

...Basically, bragging rights! 😆😆

But not here though, surely ? 

19 hours ago, Mr Spock said:

We are all looking for that last ounce of performance from what we have.

 

Well at least the scope optics are higher up Richard Suiters "wobbly stack" of factors that impact the view than eyepieces:

1)    Aperture

2)    Seeing (not transparency, but the level of atmospheric disturbance which distorts the image moment to moment)

3)    Quality of the primary optics

4)    Central obstruction size

5)    Alignment of the optics

6)    The diagonal (mirrors scatter much more than lenses)

7)    The ability of the focuser to deliver critical fine focus

8)    The eyepiece

9)    The skill and fatigue level of the observer and their eyes

Excellent comparison review - many thanks for conducting and posting it 🙂

I suppose many folks reading this will be left wondering why seemingly sane and level headed people are prepared to pay such a large premium for such small margins of performance improvement and sometimes over a number of telescopes🙄

I'm not going to attempt to answer that one having been "guilty" of doing just that !

Thanks again for the review 👍

I have one identical to the top one but it is branded William Optics. It came with a scope that I bought a couple of years ago. Not very impressed at all I'm afraid. The apparent field of view seems even narrower than other zooms and does not widen out much even at 8mm. The eye cup is flimsy on mine and field stop mushy. The zoom action is rather stiff as well. Optically it is OK but nothing special. I'm rather shocked to see that Bresser branded version priced at 150 Euros to be honest with you. I would have been disappointed if I had paid £30 for it.

The bottom one looks very much like the OVL Hyperflex 9-27mm zoom:

 Hyperflex 9-27mm Zoom | First Light Optics

I don't have the 9-27 Hyperflex but I do have the 7.2-21.5mm version and it's a pretty decent performer. The field of view is quite narrow at 21.5mm but the optics are sharp and the zoom action smooth. If the 9-27 is similar then it will be a better zoom than the Bresser one I feel.

I enjoy observing the moon at practically all it's phases 🙂