Orion and a pair of Fracs

[F15Rules]

I was pleased to get out last night, wrapped up to the gunnels against the stiff, cold breeze coming off the North Sea..

I thought I'd put the Vixen SP102 out alongside Trinity the Tak😊..

Both scopes were lined up on Orion, and I spent the next couple of hours happily just moving around Orion, with several visits to Sirius in between.

I used a 2" dielectric mirror diagonal in Trinity and a Baader BBHS Zeiss T2 prism with 2" Clicklock to T2 adapter in the Vixen..this enables the use of 2" eyepieces in the Vixen, despite it only having a 1.25" focuser..I found in my 'bits box' an adapter with a T2 connection on one end which threads into the prism front end, and on the other end a thread which fits into the chromed draw tube of the Vixen's focuser, see below:

This setup minimises vignetting with the BBHS prism (which has 35mm free aperture).

Using this setup with my Axiom LX 23mm 82 deg in the Vixen gave 43x, extremely similar to the 45x it gives in the Tak (the scopes focal lengths are 1000mm and 1040mm respectively.

In both scopes the fields looked remarkably similar in size when viewing M42..of course the Tak at 128mm was a good deal brighter than in the Vixen, but the Trapezium in both scopes stayed sharp right to the edge of the field.

Using a 9mm Morpheus, a lot more detail became visible in the Tak, with E and F stars faintly but definitely visible with direct vision, despite the bright moon. Nevertheless, the contrast and sharpness in the Vixen was still very pleasing..only on bright stars like Rigel was CA apparent, as a fine violet halo around the star..on anything below mag 1 it was really not an issue..and Rigel B was clearly visible in both scopes, and very sharp in the Vixen - I'm pretty sure that was due to the BBHS prism, which really does seem to reduce scatter, plus the fact that I cleaned it recently but haven't yet cleaned the dielectric mirror diagonal, which I know has some visible dust on it.

I spent an interesting half hour on Sigma Orionis, and readily saw with direct vision the 4th faint companion, estimated at mag 11 or fainter. Here, the Vixen was well beaten by the Tak, only showing a very faint glimpse, with averted vision, and only with the 9mm Morpheus.

M42 itself presented lovely detail in both scopes, but the Bat wings could be seen to extend much more across the field in the Tak, especially in the Morpheus 17.5mm, which seems to have particularly good light transmission.

Finally, I came tantalisingly close to seeing the Pup, Sirius' close companion last night..sadly, there was just too much scintillation of the image (and the strong breeze didn't help).

I didn't use the BBHS prism in the Tak last night..qas I stated above, I did feel that light scatter was noticeably less in the prism than the mirror diagonal, and look forward to a proper Tak/Prism session soon.. but for last night, I thoroughly enjoyed being out with two very different, but enjoyable refractors😊.

Dave

Edited January 21, 2022 by F15Rules
Additional text info

[NGC 1502]

Hi Dave, enjoyed reading that. I’m not envious of the Tak 128……….I’m VERY envious 😁.  My best refractor is a humble ED80 but I’ve been quite amazed at what it can do, in half decent conditions it splits doubles incredibly well…can only imagine what your Tak is capable of.

Ed.

[SuburbanMak]

Lovely read about some lovely ‘scopes, thank you! 

[Stu]

Fabulous! A great read Dave, that must have been fun 👍👍

[refractor2345]

Awesome, I love Long focus for this job, you need wide exit pupil to pull out the color, and widefields don't magnify much, so get a narrow telescope, use a widefield eyepiece and boom! I just love the view through it!

[wookie1965]

Brilliant Dave and two lovely scopes I really like those tripods.

[Saganite]

Hi Dave,

It would be easy to spend a whole evening in and around Orion wouldn't it, so much to observe .

Now that you have the 2" clicklock on the Zeiss prism diagonal for Trinity, the FS128,  I eagerly await your findings  re the Axiom 23mm ....

[F15Rules]

Hi Steve,

I really like the Axiom 23mm..it's comfortable, very sharp and has great contrast..right up there with the Vixen LVW 22mm, but with an extra 17 degree fov.

It is much bulkier than the Vixen though, too much so for binoviewing..more like a Meade/ES/Maxvision 28mm size and heft.

I've yet to have a session under moon free, transparent skies, but I am optimistic it will be superb on M42 etc, open clusters and bright globs like M13, M92 as well.

Oh, and I think it will work well with my AP Barcon Barlow to become a 2x 11.5mm eyepiece😊..will check and report back on that..

Dave