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Show us your Vixen Scope or mount


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33 minutes ago, 25585 said:

Not sure I trust any old electronic stuff, whatever it may be. Nice sturdy manual mounts with setting circles & slo mo are fine, but I have tripods aplenty.

SW have set a bad example with their Skytee 2's mechanics, so anything better interests me.

My 20 plus year old Vixen Atlux with Skysensor 2000 PC worked beautifully and even connected to SkySafari with no problem. Amazing.

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52 minutes ago, 25585 said:

Not sure I trust any old electronic stuff, whatever it may be. Nice sturdy manual mounts with setting circles & slo mo are fine, but I have tripods aplenty.

SW have set a bad example with their Skytee 2's mechanics, so anything better interests me.

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.

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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! :happy11:

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4 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Here's are three pics showing my FS128 mounted on a Vixen GP back in 2003.

You told me once Mike about a friend borrowed a GP to mount a 150mm Meade scope I believe.. can't see an eq5 or 6 handling one of those.  

I have my GP as probably my best astro purchase, on the basis I'd rather sell my scope first, followed by an arm and/or leg.. She's 25 or so years old but has been so well looked after buy all her previous owners (thanks gents).. 

I've no idea what it's worth now, I know I'm up to about  £300 after the tripod build and half pier I bought on top of the head and handset.. to me it's worth alot more than that but but I doubt I would recover that if I decided to sell.. not that I think I'm in negative equity with the improvements but I'd be spending around £1k to match it in todays offerings to get close to what I think my GP is doing.... thinking eq6r and berlebach.

Ta

Fozzie

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I also missed this thread........

Home made OTA using a 102mm f13 Vixen achromat, circa 1980 vintage, on a Vixen mount. Still gives stunning views after 30 years use, and will be out & about for Mars in July!

Chris

 

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3 hours ago, Fozzie said:

You told me once Mike about a friend borrowed a GP to mount a 150mm Meade scope I believe.. can't see an eq5 or 6 handling one of those.  

I have my GP as probably my best astro purchase, on the basis I'd rather sell my scope first, followed by an arm and/or leg.. She's 25 or so years old but has been so well looked after buy all her previous owners (thanks gents).. 

I've no idea what it's worth now, I know I'm up to about  £300 after the tripod build and half pier I bought on top of the head and handset.. to me it's worth alot more than that but but I doubt I would recover that if I decided to sell.. not that I think I'm in negative equity with the improvements but I'd be spending around £1k to match it in todays offerings to get close to what I think my GP is doing.... thinking eq6r and berlebach.

Ta

Fozzie

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!

58626435a25c0_2016-11-3021_27_02.jpg.d1318aa789ed3d79551be8bafb8d773d.thumb.jpg.e0febc9e3e3c35f4ca5b13a096114b74.jpg 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!

Edited by mikeDnight
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2 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

I also missed this thread........

Home made OTA using a 102mm f13 Vixen achromat, circa 1980 vintage, on a Vixen mount. Still gives stunning views after 30 years use, and will be out & about for Mars in July!

Chris

 

bigfracsm.png

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!!

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As a fan of retro mounts, what models, colours and maximum loads were all the different G/S/P /DX Super/Polaris mounts?

How can you tell one is actually a Vixen from photos? The ENS photos, for example show no Vixen badge anywhere. 

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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.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm a huge (old) Vixen fan. This is my Vixen ED114 refractor on a Vixen GPDX mount with the Skysensor 2000 controller

DSC00716.JPG

I used the above portable imaging set-up for years until the frac and nifty Vixen guidescope combo went onto an EQ6 in my observatory.  Colour correction on the frac is not perfect (it's an ED after all) but the scope works just fine on narrowband.  The Skysensor was/is a superb bit of kit: it remembers the time and date, tracks comets from orbital elements and has superb pointing and tracking accuracy. It was let down by the weedy plastic electrical connection to the handset that occasionally rendered it frustratingly cranky; the scope would sometimes fly off in a random direction if you moved the handset and flexed the connection!  But the PE on the mount is only around 3-4 arc-seconds (and you could flatten that out even more because the SS2K has PPEC), and the polar finder was excellent.  I still use the GPDX with a C9.25 for planetary or visual.

I also still have a VC200L that I used to use on the same set-up...

Dsc00727.jpg

The thick spider vanes for the secondary do make bright stars a bit blocky for imaging but otherwise it's very sharp, has a huge imaging circle and it is also a superb visual scope - the big secondary doesn't affect contrast as much as you might think. The scope holds its collimation well - I've only had to tweak it once in the 15 years I've had it (and that was because I dropped it - no damage done thank goodness!).

I also have a collection of Vixen Lanthanum long-relief eyepieces (4, 9, 15, 25 and 40mm plus 2x barlow), all of which are excellent.

Edited by Hallingskies
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13 hours ago, Hallingskies said:

I'm a huge (old) Vixen fan. This is my Vixen ED114 refractor on a Vixen GPDX mount with the Skysensor 2000 controller

DSC00716.JPG

I used the above portable imaging set-up for years until the frac and nifty Vixen guidescope combo went onto an EQ6 in my observatory.  Colour correction on the frac is not perfect (it's an ED after all) but the scope works just fine on narrowband.  The Skysensor was/is a superb bit of kit: it remembers the time and date, tracks comets from orbital elements and has superb pointing and tracking accuracy. It was let down by the weedy plastic electrical connection to the handset that occasionally rendered it frustratingly cranky; the scope would sometimes fly off in a random direction if you moved the handset and flexed the connection!  But the PE on the mount is only around 3-4 arc-seconds (and you could flatten that out even more because the SS2K has PPEC), and the polar finder was excellent.  I still use the GPDX with a C9.25 for planetary or visual.

I also still have a VC200L that I used to use on the same set-up...

Dsc00727.jpg

The thick spider vanes for the secondary do make bright stars a bit blocky for imaging but otherwise it's very sharp, has a huge imaging circle and it is also a superb visual scope - the big secondary doesn't affect contrast as much as you might think. The scope holds its collimation well - I've only had to tweak it once in the 15 years I've had it (and that was because I dropped it - no damage done thank goodness!).

I also have a collection of Vixen Lanthanum long-relief eyepieces (4, 9, 15, 25 and 40mm plus 2x barlow), all of which are excellent.

I have wondered if the VMC200L is better than SCTs for visual. A half way between SC and MC?

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I can see fainter objects with my C9.25 than I can with the 8 inch VCL....but...it is a bigger aperture with less of an overall central obstruction, and, dare I say it, stars look a bit sharper in the VCL...and it almost NEVER dews up.  The VCL is not as easy to collimate but it does tend to stay put, unlike the Celeston (but which is easy to do “in the field”).  No mirror flop with the VCL of course, but then I’ve never really noticed any with the Celestron either.  Would love to try a good 6 or 8 inch Mak - think it might edge them both.  Think the VCL might be better than an equivalent aperture SCT, though.  Personal view of course...

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2 hours ago, Froeng said:

Beautiful setup!

love the short pillar concept..,

Frank

It all used to sit on top of a box with a lap top and all the electrics in, held down by springs so you could level it all.  I could just roll it all out of my garage on a wheeled dolly down to a platform at the bottom of my (secluded) drive, and get going in about 10 minutes.  It was a perfect set-up.  And then we moved house...

Edited by Hallingskies
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  • 7 months later...
On 24/03/2018 at 08:27, Alan White said:

The one big regret I have is selling my GP2 mount, it was so well made.

It now belongs to another here on SGL.

As to Mikes OCD, I must point out the white counterweights sets off that white Tak rather well.

I still regret the day I sold this, really do, it would have sat with my ED103s so well.
You live and learn of course.

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