summer observing with Vixen 125mm binoculars and Intes 6inch mak newtonian

[Bodkin]

I have had my 30x125 Vixen binoculars for just over a year now and my Intes mak newt for over twenty years, but it seems like I am only just getting to grips with them both.  The Intes had a major construction problem that I always put down to my poor collimation capabilities. I finally had the courage of my convictions and opened her up and reset the secondary correctly; it was about 3mm too far down the tube. The Vixens have required a patient learning curve to get the best out of them but I am getting there.  Anyway I celebrated with a side-by-side shoot out last night to see which of the instruments I favoured, if either. The Vixens are on their alt-az mount and the Intes on a Losmandy GM8 strengthened with the heavy duty tripod from the GM11 (a major improvement in stability!).

The sky in mid Wales was very good, though a touch less dark than the night before.  I went on a whistlestop tour of brighter objects for the two hours or so of good darkness. 

NGC4565 - jumped straight into view with the Vixens. A beautiful needle with slight tapering visible at the ends. No definite central dark band, but possibly seen.  A good view in the Intes, but preferred the Vixens.

M53 - a more enjoyable sight in the Intes, not surprisingly given the potential for higher magnification, though the Vixen image was pleasing too.  Failed to see nearby NGC5053 in either instrument

M108 and M97 - a lovely view of both in the same field with the binoculars.  The eyes of M97 were just seen in the binoculars but missed in the Intes.  However, adding an OIII filter to the Intes eyepiece gave a wonderful view of M97 with clear eyes. The Vixen has fixed eyepieces unfortunately, so no filter change is possible.

M101 - another galaxy that jumped right out in the Vixens with a good degree of mottling across a huge grey smudge.  The Intes provided a clear view of the object, but without signs of mottling

M51 - the Intes was the winner here with the ability to dial up the magnification slightly. I am always a bit unsure whether the hints of spiral structure come from my imagination when I use a smaller instrument on M51; the photographic image is always so clear in my mind

Veil - lots of nebulosity seen in the Vixens and very nicely framed. Again the Intes had the advantage of the use of an OIII filter, which brought lots of subtle structure into view.  It is worth buying an OIII for this object alone to my mind.

M10, M12, M13, M56 - very well seen in the Intes where the tight stars and blacker background showed all four globular clusters very nicely. Good resolution of stars in all, though fewer seen in M56.  

M57 - seen easily in the Vixens but far better in the Intes with good visibility of the oval shape and a lovely rich background star field

M27 - better in the Vixens where the large nebula seemed to hang in front of an incredibly rich field. Some clear structure seen.

M81 and M82 - nice in both but the Vixens seemed to provide more information on the contrasting shapes the galaxies

There were a few more sights in one of other of the instruments. As I expected it was a case of horses for courses. The Intes provides a very fine image with a dark background and great resolution for its size.  The Vixens major on relaxed viewing and did particularly well on galaxies. The Vixens are achromatic and objectively have significantly poorer image quality than the Intes. However, I preferred using them over the Intes during the night.  For someone like me who isn't particularly interested in solar system observing they make a grab and go solution that I can be happy with all night.

[John]

Nice report Jonathan

I used to have an Intes 6 inch mak-newtonian. It was a really excellent performer. As good as a 5 inch apochromat refractor on the planets and the moon I reckon and better on deep sky targets.

 

 

[Bodkin]

Thanks John,

It was the excellent reviews of the scope that kept me working on it to try to improve the image quality of my one.  At first I thought that it was a collimation problem, but there was no way I could get it sorted despite many years of collimating newtonians.  Next I thought that the focusser was to blame and wasn't orthogonal to the tube; a new focusser, but no joy.  Finally after much gnashing of teeth I removed the meniscus and inspected the secondary.  It is attached to a 45% secondary holder, but there are no lugs to ensure that it is attached centrally. Mine was offset down the tube by a few millimetres, plenty of distance to damage the image quality and make collimation impossible. A stanley knife blade, some silicone and some delicate manoeuvring have transformed the scope.  Now I understand what you say about the performance.