mikeDnight

Rings when Tak offer a superb, beautiful, matching and superior clamshell? And the rings are red for goodness sake. What would possess anyone with a modicum of good taste to put red rings on a beautiful, elegant, white, blue and silver Tak tube assembly? It would be like putting Micra wheels on a Porche.

Ditto! They are truly excellent scopes!

My MEF focuser has been on for a couple of years or more and its worked flawlessly. I've never had a screw loose!

Spending a small fortune on upgrading a good focuser to a state of the art focuser, when you're talking about Takahashi, is really testament to just how much the owners appreciate that incredible lens. If someone gave me an FT to put on my scope i wouldnt complain, but until that day I'll be content with my humble MEF 3.

These things just keep turning up! Dave told me that RVO had a second hand 7.5mm Ultima, which strangely turned up this morning, and Dave also sold me a 7.5mm Ultima that also turned up this morning. Thanks Dave! Now I have a bino pair of 7.5mm's that will give me a silly high power of around X400. Should be good for Mars when its only 4" arc!

I'm quite content with my MEF 3 micro focuser and would happily fit one to any Tak scope, even the longer DL. I find it very precise even at very high powers, so when the undulating atmosphere subtly defocused the image, the lightest touch of the MEF 3 fine tunes the image again with no effort. Although an FT would be a nice addition, I would personally find it hard to justify the expense when the MEF 3 performs the task admirably.

Thanks for the heads up on these Dave. I've now got a bino pair of 18's!

The post man kindly handed me a parcel this morning, which I found after opening it, contained pristine 18mm and 12.5mm Celestron Ultimas.

You could easily make a retractable dew shield from some flexible plastic. Art students often use large plastic cases for carrying artwork, and these cheap cases are perfect for making a shield, as the plastic is quite flexible. My home made dew shield is made from such flexible plastic, which I lined with black felt stuck down using pray on glue. Then the shield is joined together using a stick on Velcro strip. The additional dew shield was made quite long and the scope doesn't dew over, despite being only 300yrds from a river.

The Vixen mounts came in black originally, then green, but some vendors such as Orion in the US had black mounts made by Vixen but with the Orion logo. More recent incarnations of the same mount came in White with blue trim. First were the Polaris and Super Polaris, which had altazimuth ability as well as equatorial. The GP and GP DX came later but didn't have AZ ability without doing some jiggery pokery. Then came the White GP and GPD2.

That's a gorgeous Super Polaris Chris, with a lovely looking classic scope mounted on it. I bought a 102mm Vixen F13 from Peter Drew in 1985/86. It gave great views, even of deep sky objects. I still have a picture of M82 etched into my minds eye after the F13 with a 40mm Kellner revealed not just M81 & 82 I'm the same field, but the mottled texture of 82 along with the dark dust lane that bisects it across its width. Stunning and breathtaking!!

Hi Fozzie, Yes, I loaned my late friend Philip a white and blue Vixen GP some years ago, but it was a Meade 127 triplet he had and not a 152. It was still a hefty beast though, yet the GP on his steel pier had a damping time of 3 seconds or less, depending on how hard you hit the pier. It's definitely a strange hobby! Phil later replaced my GP, which was on permanent loan to him, with a much larger Meade equatorial, then an EQ6. The trouble with the EQ6 was that he'd forfeited the wonderful manual overide option of the GP, plus the EQ6 by comparison is a bit of a monster. That was a big mistake! Although the Meade mount looked impressive, he'd have been better mounting his telescope on a bed spring. It would not stand still even in the lightest breeze! A look of regret I would say! I honestly think you are wise to keep hold of that faithful old girl, as with the appropriate couterweights she'll probably carry pretty much anything you put on her. As regards what she's worth, well you said yourself that it would cost £1000 to match her carrying capacity with a modern alternative, so she's worth at least that amount. Of course a GP DX would be a step up if you ever felt the need for a greater load capacity, and you could probably grab one for around £400 to £500. It amuses as well as saddens me that the Vixen GP's are now looked on as old-fashioned. I'm also glad that I'm too old to be influenced by fashion; not that I ever was in fashion! The upside of this of course is that these wonderful mounts appear second hand at very reasonable prices. I think there was one on AB&S only a few days ago for £250. I'd buy it but I've already got two!

Here's are three pics showing my FS128 mounted on a Vixen GP back in 2003. My friend Gain is posing gleefully at the eyepiece end.

I suppose prices are relative. Although the SW EQ5 looks similar to the Vixen GP they are not the same. The engineering on the Vixen is to a much higher standard, and the basic GP head will carry a much more massive load than the EQ5 ever could. That's not to say the EQ5 is a poor mount, it isn't, its just that the GP is better. I've seen second hand GP's sell for under £200, which is almost unbelievable. I bought a GP three years ago for £300, which had electronic drives and a superb tripod. The tripod alone is worth £200 of antibodies money, so to me it was a steal!

I'd rather trust the old stuff than the new! I have no interest in computers for astronomy or mounts that dont have a manual option, but RA and DEC drives, or just RA drive suits me fine. I've seen so many modern, more complex scope electronics pause problems, while the trusty Vixen motors just keep going and going and.......! I suppose if some people like gadgetry then that's part of what makes them tick, but I find it incredibly stressful, which kind of defeats what its all about for me. I'm just a lazy sky tourist who enjoys reading charts and going on the occasional astro mystery tour.

I really love this Vixen tripod Dave. It's got an exceptionally wide spread and is surprisingly solid and vibration free. It makes the cheap Chinese clones look pathetic by comparison. I like wooden tripods but the Vixen AL 1.5 is just too good to part with. So it seems that the only issues i'll have to contend with is the local seeing, and of course this Tak lens! And that WHITE counterweight!! It plays havoc with my OCD!

One for each eye! The 1.5m tripod came with my first GP now in the observatory. This deal was only for the mount head, and to my surprise a WHITE counterweight. ?

A few days ago I parted with this classic Vixen Polaris, at first it was a long term loan. Then after further discussion with paulastro, we decided to do a trade. Paul wanted the Polaris as a quality Altaz for his 4" ED. For my part I received this in exchange! A beautiful Vixen GP. This is my second Vixen GP, the first is permanently housed on a steel pier in my observatory and now this second GP is my solid grab and go mount. I prefer equatorial when sketching! Personally i feel these classic mounts are some of the finest portable mounts ever made. It's a tragedy Vixen stopped making them, but fortunately they are greatly undervalued by the majority and so come up second hand quite cheap.

I genuinely love the SW ED's in all their guises, after all I've owned five of them, including three 120's. They are superb! B-uuut, would the greater aperture of the 120 offer that all important edge in definition, over the superlative figure of the Canon Optron lens of the Tak??? I think the best way to find out is for BillP to loan us both (long term of course), his Zeiss Abbey's and let us battle it out! I'm sure Bill won't mind, he's still got plenty of other toys to play with!

Yes, but how much better would Bill's kindly donated Zeiss Abbey Ortho's be in my Tak than in .........Oops! Mind that step!!

The Baader helical focuser on the Baader 1.25" prism is a great way to get micro-focus capability at a fraction of the cost of a Tak micro-focuser. The only drawback arrises if you later choose to use a binoviewer, as the viewer would rotate with the focuser. The Baader prism is excellent!

If you ever do have an abberation Bill, and decide to offer your material possessions to the poor, then please keep me in mind!

Are you talking yourself into buying a set Dave? I find it interesting how some people seem to love the eye lens in the longer focal lengths being set down inside the eyepiece body while others, myself included, hate it that way. I'm sure the Tak ortho's are excellent, but for them to be better optically than the Fujiyama's and not as good as the TMB Super Monocentric's seems to me to be a very fine line to straddle. Perhaps the chunkier engineered body and the fact that they are relatively expensive compared to other ortho's, and they are made for Takahashi, has some psychological impact? That's not to say i wouldnt mind owning a set! What puts me off buying pricey Tak's for mono use is that I've seen the TMB Super Mono's consistently beaten by a mile, by cheap as chips, 365 Astronomy 16.8mm Abbe Orthoscopics and a revelation binoviewer, with X2 SW delux barlow. What a game changer! I think the only mono eyepieces I have a mild craving for are the Astro Physics Planetaries. By "mild craving" I mean I'd sell my wife and kids for a set!

You need to invest in one of these!