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Vixen LV 30mm


Naemeth

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When I got the chance to pick up a used 30mm LV I snapped it up straight away. This is now pretty rare, as the LVs have been discontinued. Unlike other LVs, this has an AFOV of 60 degrees, very reasonable for a 30mm :)

Happy, even though I had to import from the US and got stung by customs charges.

To use it's comfortable, and certainly doesn't feel restricted compared to the Panoptic (which only has 8 degrees more AFOV)

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Great-looking EP. It is a curious odd one out in the LV line-up: not quite LVW, but not quite LV. I am looking forward to your first-light report

Indeed, I tried to have a first light last night, but almost as soon as I took it out of the case a huge cloud bank came over the sky, and I didn't get much chance to do much observing...

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Nice one.  I'm a fan of the Vixen LVs & LVWs,  underated by some, these work well in fast scopes, with a lovely comfy eyerelief.

Seen them go for bargain prices too, perhaps because of the rise of the ultra wide and hyper wide EPs.

You will love the LV, hope you get first light soon.

Regards, Ed.

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  • 3 years later...

Whilst I was not the starter of this thread, I am happy to chip in my opinions on this eyepiece.

I bought a used one (no chance of buying a new one) a couple of months ago that is in excellent condition. I had seen some reviews from ages ago and thought I would give it a go if one ever became available. I am glad I did.

Whillst I am no expert, I found the views through this eyepiece to be very worthwhile. It is quite a large 2" eyepiece but is surprisingly light and I did not need to rebalance my scope to accomodate it. I used it in a Vixen ED80 600mm F7.5 scope last night from my back garden which has moderate light polluted views. Amongst the targets I looked at were Pleiades, Cassiopea and the Double Cluster and the view was sharp across most of the view and to my eyes at least I could not detect much in the way of aberrations. I looked through it at daylight targets and could not see any pincushion or barrel distortion (unlike the 28mm Maxvision that I used to own and the LV was a replacement for that eyepiece). The background was a little washed out and lacking contrast but this did not detract the views. It does not compare to the view from my 26mm Nagler but it made a damn good try. Given that the Nagler cost me six times as much that was to be expected.

I also compared it to my Vixen LVW22 (which is my widest 1.25 eyepiece), and whilst not as sharp across the whole view the LV30 was not that far off.

The only other Vixen LVs I have looked through are the 5mm and 6mm, but that would be like comparing apples and pears.

For me it is a keeper and would recommend it to anyone, the fun part is waiting to see if one comes up on the used market. I have only seen two become available in the last couple of years.

Hope this helps.

Tony

 

 

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I have used one very successfully in f/5 and f/4.7 Newtonians. I found it very comfortable to use and nice and sharp even with fastish optics. I dropped it from my observing kit for a 28mm 68° ES, which I found every bit as sharp and comfortable but with slightly wider field and most importantly a darker sky background and better contrast on faint nebulae due to the smaller exit pupil. The Vixen is a cracking eyepiece though and it's now the 'wide angle low power' option in my public outreach EP set.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/19/2016 at 14:24, Star Struck said:

There is one for sale on ABS at the moment for £58.

 

Better move quickly if you want one...

Wouldn't want to plunk down any money unless I find out how it performs on & off axis from many different users first....

 

F/5 and below is a brutal test chamber for an eyepiece. I've used quite a few that did *not* require a coma corrector because those EP's in question were nice w/o one...so I was curious about this one.

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