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Vixen SD 100 f3.8 Flat Field Refractor

Cjg

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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OMG, I though Vixen was going to clone Pentax 100SDUFII, but no, it's a new 5 element design. Well done Vixen, well done

I wonder if Vixen designed this themselves, or was it a Pentax 100SDUFII replacement that never made it to the market before Pentax's Telescope division got axed.

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Cjg

Cjg

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Looks a quality bit of kit. I sold (and owned) Pentax Cameras; their lenses were right up with Nikon and Canon in terms of optical quality. But remember their scopes being as "expensive" as their lenses. Am guessing that this will be priced in Takahashi territory?

Chris

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Cjg

Cjg

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I wonder what these are going to cost? 4-5k?

Ouch, I hope not; what would an equivalent Borg / Tak cost? Perhaps £2-£3K. FLO have "Atumn" as availability, that's not too far off now.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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I'd guess £5k for the OTA and £1.5k for the F3 reducer. I think this will be marketed as a direct competitor for the FSQ106.

Vixen seems to have kept every details of a Pentax scope apart from the colour scheme and logo. They could have put the optics in a Vixen tube, but instead they chose to copy every detail of the Pentax. Rubber bumper on the dew shield, the helical focuser, placement of Vixen name plate, that idiotic Pentax visual back, the finder mount...

It's clear Vixen is making an effort to make this scope looks and feels exactly like a Pentax and market this as a Pentax astrograph in every details but brand name. Even the Vixen logo on the dew shield is changed to look like the original Pentax logo. While I don't think they can sell it with a Pentax price tag, they probably try to sell it at Takahashi price.

P.S. It makes me wonder why didn't Hoya or Ricoh just sell the Pentax telescope brand to Vixen. After all, Hoya split Pentax into several companies. They kept Pentax medical and ceramics division, sold the surveying division to Taiwan and the imaging division to photocopier company. Now it looks like Ricoh plan to scrap the Pentax brand. Since they have no plan to reenter the astronomy market, and they sold/licenced most of Pentax's telescope patents to Vixen, why not just sell/licence the Pentax Telescope brand to Vixen as well. The Pentax brand still worth a lot of money in the astronomy market.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Ouch, I hope not; what would an equivalent Borg / Tak cost? Perhaps £2-£3K. FLO have "Atumn" as availability, that's not too far off now.

Japanese made Vixen sits between Takahashi and Borg in terms of price and optical quality. Takahashi's equivalent to this VSD is the FSQ106 which cost around £5k. Borg doesn't have an equivalent scope.

Borg's selling point is its unique lightweight modular system and fast astrograph. Optically 77ED and 101ED is known to have more CA than the ED80.

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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Just had a crazy idea.

What do you think will happen if you stick an eyepiece in this thing? It's a fast f3.8 flatfield apo refractor and it doesn't have coma or field curvature that you'd find in fast newt.

Sensitivity to collimation? That's about all I can think of.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Sensitivity to collimation? That's about all I can think of.

I hope not, a refractor is VERY sensitive to collimation error and very hard to collimate (That's why most are shipped pre-collimated at the factory and without any provision for user adjustment). Collimating a 5-elements f3.8 refractor would be close to impossible without specialist equipment. If Vixen allowed one to arrive at the user out of collimation, it will killed this scope sale instantly.

I was thinking more about astigmatism and CA of the eyepieces rather than the scope

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Cjg

Cjg

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Noticed this on the Vixen.jp site about the scope .

"The patent rights relating to some barrel and Vixen Co., Ltd. has signed a transfer agreement between the drawing and HOYA CORPORATION (PENTAX Imaging) in 2010."

and "As an optional part, I prepare extender reducer of three Configuration 3 new design group (0.79 ×), three groups of four configure (1.58 ×). Through the combination of these parts, as Planetary observation barrel 600mmF6.0 or, as astrograph of ultra short-focus of 300mmF3.0, to adapt to a variety of target."

It's the start of October tomorrow, wonder if FLO will have any updates re pricing and delivery?

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pete_gamby

pete_gamby

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As I suspected might be the case, there has been a delay in the production of this new scope. We still don't even have factory pricing yet, let alone a delivery schedule :-(

Steve will be one of the first to know as soon as we have more details.

Cheers, Pete

Sales Manager - Opticron/Vixen UK

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