Froeng

Fantastic sketches!

Great report! A very nice challenge. Will have to give this a try at some point as well!

Excellent report. Can’t wait to see Jupiter and Saturn come ‘round the house... Frank

A brilliant sketch of a beautiful object. Well done! Frank

Very nice report indeed. It is a very satisfying experience to push the boundaries of what one can see...

Hi Damian, Very nice report and well illustrated! Always great to see a successful session can be had in less than optimal conditions. Best Regards Frank

Beautiful setup! love the short pillar concept.., Frank

Thanks Jeremy, the guidescope is a Vixen 60l, f/15 Fraunhofer. It is attached to the top of the mount. This is a diy solution using some angle brackets and standard tube rings/guide scope rings, depending on what I am doing with it in that session... the tripod is the original SP-DX one that came with the mount. Detail photo below:

... just wanted to bump this thread up a bit again. My SP-DX and scopes in all its glory:

... and more Vixen “vintage” stuff. The 45mm Plössl is (I believe) now a rarity. But it’s excellent on my 60l refractor. I recently bought a GA-4 in 24.5mm (left over stock from a UK dealer). This is an extremely well made piece of kit! It almost has the feel of professional medical equipment (not that I am an expert). It makes guiding with the refractor very easy and keeps eye straining down to a minimum.

Very nice setup! I didn’t know Vixen made the recent (white) mounts with wooden tripods! Looks beautiful. I generally found the wooden ones better than the aluminium legs..

Hi Old Nick, that must be an SP90m? A very nice achromat on a perfect match mount! Hope you can enjoy it for a long time! The good thing about Vixen equipment is that it hardly ever breaks! The only thing that gave up on me was the DMD-1 handset - after 22 years!But I believe that was my user error (wrong polarity). Frank

... and while we are talking about packaging. I recently bought the Vixen refractor bag for my 60l f/15. its a perfect fit for my secondary scope and has some room for the original accessories: unfortunately the tube is slightly dented from the guidescope tube rings. :-(

Brilliant! Thanks Philip

Hi Zhao, my case is similar, the pluck-out foam is also a little too soft. I might follow your example and buy some EPE foam. Any good source for this? Thanks Frank

I love that SXP! I never used one but If I ever retire my old SP-DX, this will be high on my wishlist. The finish is excellent, the starbook seems outstanding and I am convinced the mechanics must be worth every penny. I also like your neat yellow case for it....

Wow, amazing looking scopes! Especially those big refractors look incredible! Below my humble 30year old C8 on my trusty old Super Polaris DX. I have also attached a Vixen 7x50 finder and my original early 80s SP 60l achromat as guidescope. Mount is driven by a Boxdoerfer MTS3 controller. This has been with me for a looong time. I have had the mount regreased a couple of years ago and it still works well! I am starting to wonder what a nice big refractor would look like on my sp-dx though... show us more photos!