Vintage 1980s Vixen 80mm F15 refractor

[F15Rules]

I took delivery this morning of a rather nice old Vixen achromat..

I've always had a soft spot for long fracs (hence my F15 handle, which refers only to these old long scopes, not to glamorous fast Fighter Jets, as some have supposed in the past😂).

Like many, I grew up with F15 scopes as a lad, and I was hooked for life having got my first Prinz 550 (60mm F900mm/F15) in the early 1970s.

There is more info on this scope on the "What did the Postman bring" thread..I didn't want to hijack that thread (there seemed to be some interest in the Vixen), so I decided it was best to open a fresh thread here, so I can post updates here as and when I get to know the scope.

In the meantime, some photos of the scope, with apologies if you've already seen them on the Postman thread!

Dave

Edited March 16 by F15Rules

[Saganite]

I share your love of long focus achromats Dave, and that scope looks a beauty, particularly the lens, congratulations.

 

[Stu]

Very nice Dave! I was tempted by that one too, but managed to resist. Glad you didn’t 🤣. Will be interested to know how it performs 👍

[Sunshine]

A beauty! remember to take the cap off before sitting at the focuser, if you forget to do so the walk back to the objective end will eat up most of your session.

[Telescope40]

Game on, Dave. Looks the business does this. Sure that cosmetically it can be worked on. 
Will look forward to your first light report fella. 
👍👍👍

John 

[John]

Great looking scope Dave - congratulations 🙂

Has that Unitron look but probably with even better optics !

 

 

[JeremyS]

Looks splendid, Dave. 👍🏻

But can we drop the “vintage” handle for the 1980s? Makes me feel old.

[Roy Challen]

Very nice Dave, gotta love a long achro! Despite having recently joined the fluorite apo club, I still enjoy my f/16 and was delighted to find that the tube sizes are the same...so I don't need to change anything if I decide to use one scope or the other😃

[wookie1965]

I would love to put a dual speed focuser on my Tal, Looks lovely a bit of cosmetics and it will top notch.

[NGC 1502]

Late to the party (again🙄)  I noticed this scope has 3 pairs of collimation screws, same as my early model Vixen 80/910 achro.  Never needed to collimate mine, but their presence shows they cared how they were made. Simple but effective ‘old school’ construction.

Nice to meet some of you recently at Kettering 👍

 

[F15Rules]

I finally got a chance to put the new to me Vixen 80mm F15 on my Tak Mount this evening..

I'm calling her "Luna" as much of my viewing through her is likely to be the moon..

Rock solid on the Tak equatorial which I know is overkill.

You can see Trinity my FS128 sulking in her Oklop case in the background!😁.

Hope you like the pics..

Dave

 

Edited March 22 by F15Rules

[Telescope40]

Dave. Looking good. Signature update required ????   Enjoy soon.    John 

[F15Rules]

Having had the scope now for over a week, here is a bit of a "first impressions" update..

Having had a good look at the scope now, in daylight, I'd make the following remarks:

Tube Condition:

This scope has, in my view, not been cared for as well as it deserved. Based on research I did, it seems that back in 2018 when acquired by the owner before the one I bought the scope from, some improvements had been made, such as internal flocking of the dewshield and the lower part of the tube near the focuser. Also, the scope was described as being "almost like new, with just a few small marks on the tube" . The optics were described as "pristine".

As it presents now, the OTA has quite a number of small marks, scratches etc on it..in particular, the dewshield is littered with scratches and marks.

The tube is oversized at 90mm versus the 80mm aperture. 

Optics Condition 

The optics look good on the outside, but there is definitely dust or something similar on (I think) the air facing surface of the rear lens of the doublet. 

I am pretty certain that the lens cell on this scope is threaded onto the OTA tube. However, so far I cannot unscrew the lens cell from the tube while it is on the tripod.

This in itself suggests that the cell has been overtightened onto the OTA threads, with the possibility of pinching the optics.

Also, one of the screws on the lens cell is loose to the touch..I can't yet tell whether this is a collimation screw or a retaining screw.

I need to be able to take the lens cell off to properly clean and check the objective from both inside and outside faces, so I need to take the tube off the mount to see if I can get enough torque to get it to unscrew.

A short peek at our local church tower with a 10.5 mm Pentax XL giving c114x seemed ok..on a bright morning, a bit of CA was evident, (not a surprise), and the colours of the lichens on the church tower were quite sharp, although the real test will of course be at night.

Focuser

The worst aspect so far was the focuser. It's a "Kepler" branded dual speed Crayford, made by GSO of Taiwan - a perfectly respectable maker of decent quality Astro eyepieces, scopes and accessories. However, it is clear that this focuser has been either neglected or "fiddled with" by someone who didn't know what they were doing!

The focuser was actually loose and could easily be rocked from side to side (2 of the 3 screws which secure the focuser to the OTA at 120 degree spacings were nowhere near tight!🤦).

Also, the larger focusing knob on the right hand side (adjacent to the smaller microfocuser knob) was loose and kept slipping. On closer inspection the knob is adjusted via a small Hex screw which is deeply recessed into the body of the knob. In fact, there are at least 6 or 7 such small Hex screws around the focuser, and several of them were loose.

After about 20 minutes of fiddling and adjusting the various small Hex screw heads, the whole focuser has tightened up nicely and is moving in and out smoothly and without slop or slackness. I will, though, make some more checks on this before entrusting my new Maxbright II binoviewers in this focuser!

The original (I think) Vixen straight through 6x30 finder was included in the sale, (only after I spotted it in a photo I found posted by the previous but one owner and asked for it!). However, the finder stalk wouldn't tighten up into the finder shoe with the supplied retaining screw..I then found out that the screw had a stripped thread! Fortunately I found a suitable spare one in my "bits box", which works fine with the finder shoe on the scopes focuser: however, I don't like straight through finders (or rather, my neck doesn't!😂), so I've fitted a nice Skywatcher 6x30 right angled (not RACI) finder. This mirrors the view in the scope and is very sharp.

If the above sounds like a litany of problems, it's not as bad as it sounds. Its just that it distresses me to see a fine telescope which has at best been neglected or at worst abused. I like to look after my equipment and even as it is, this scope is a fine looking instrument, which deserves some TLC.

So long as the night performance is decent, I will look on this scope as a keeper, and plan to slowly but surely restore it's cosmetics over time 👍😊.

A few more photos..

This image above shows the setup at perfect balance on my Tak Mount. The tube is carrying a 2" Dielectric Diagonal and a Pentax 10.5mm XL eyepiece so the tube needs to be pushed well forward to achieve balance.

The scopes optics look quite good but would benefit from a clean on the inside face.No scratches, mould or fungus.

My Tak EM2 mount, which normally platforms my FS128, "Trinity", makes short solid work of holding fast the old Vixen!

Thanks for reading!

Dave

[jock1958]

Looks very nice Dave and I’m sure all it needs is some of your TLC to restore it to its former glory.
As far as unscrewing the lens what about trying some rubber garden gloves for the extra grip and getting someone to hold the bottom of the tube while you do it?

And if that doesn’t work there’s always the oil filter strap wrench when and if you get desperate 😩🤣

Edited March 23 by jock1958

[Telescope40]

On 22/03/2023 at 00:58, F15Rules said:

You can see Trinity my FS128 sulking in her Oklop case in the background!

Hello Dave. Trust all good today with you.   Could i ask which version of the Oklop bag you have for your FS128.  I think I may treat mine to the same level of comfort. 

Thanks   John 

[mikeDnight]

On 22/03/2023 at 00:58, F15Rules said:

I finally got a chance to put the new to me Vixen 80mm F15 on my Tak Mount this evening..

I'm calling her "Luna" as much of my viewing through her is likely to be the moon..

Rock solid on the Tak equatorial which I know is overkill.

You can see Trinity my FS128 sulking in her Oklop case in the background!😁.

Hope you like the pics..

Dave

 

Lovely scope Dave - shame about the mount! 

[F15Rules]

1 hour ago, Telescope40 said:

Hello Dave. Trust all good today with you.   Could i ask which version of the Oklop bag you have for your FS128.  I think I may treat mine to the same level of comfort. 

Thanks   John 

Hi John, 

All good here thanks .apart from no clear nights for over 2 weeks!

Here you go..

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescope-bags-cases-storage/oklop-padded-bag-for-150mm-1200mm-refractors.html

Seem to be showing in stock👍

Cheers,

Dave

[Telescope40]

2 hours ago, F15Rules said:

Hi John, 

All good here thanks .apart from no clear nights for over 2 weeks!

Here you go..

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescope-bags-cases-storage/oklop-padded-bag-for-150mm-1200mm-refractors.html

Seem to be showing in stock👍

Cheers,

Dave

Thanks Dave. Just the same here weather wise 👎👎

John 👍👍

[Franklin]

On 21/03/2023 at 07:17, NGC 1502 said:

 I noticed this scope has 3 pairs of collimation screws, same as my early model Vixen 80/910 achro.

Could be mistaken but I think the older models came with collimatable cells because of the 120deg 3-bolt fixing of the focuser assembly on these models which gave the possibility of some tilt. When Vixen adopted the screw in focuser design they also stopped making the collimatable cells because both ends screw into the tube and should all be square and lined up correctly.

[John]

1 hour ago, Franklin said:

Could be mistaken but I think the older models came with collimatable cells because of the 120deg 3-bolt fixing of the focuser assembly on these models which gave the possibility of some tilt. When Vixen adopted the screw in focuser design they also stopped making the collimatable cells because both ends screw into the tube and should all be square and lined up correctly.

You might be right in this but quite a few of the older Vixen models have non-collimatable objective cells AND the 3-bolt focuser fixing. My 23 year old ED102SS F/6.5 is one example and I've seen quite a few older Vixen's with the same cell design. Some also with collimation adjustments though so it varies.

I wonder if Vixen stopped including collimatable objective cells because the accuracy of the manufacturing tolerances in the scopes meant that they simply didn't need them ?

Probably only Vixen would really know ! 🙂

 

 

 

Edited March 25 by John

[Franklin]

20 minutes ago, John said:

I wonder if Vixen stopped including collimatable objective cells because the accuracy of the manufacturing tolerances in the scopes meant that they simply didn't need them ?

I think this is probably correct because with the more modern scopes there is no provision for adjusting anything, which I think is an improvement. The lens elements are set in the cell at the factory and presumably checked on an optical bench and the cell and focuser are both threaded into the tube. So there's nothing to go wrong, barring accidents, and the scopes should leave the factory collimated and hopefully stay that way. I've checked the new Vixens I've received recently with a short cheshire and they're fine. I fear there may be some older scopes doing the rounds on the used market which have been "tinkered with" by previous owners and are unfortunately in misalignment, so I welcome all non-tinkerable (Is that a word?) designs. And yes, I have seen non-collimatable cells with the 3-bolt focusers as well but not after Vixen changed their colour scheme to blue when the Sphinx range was released, around early 2000 I think? 

[John]

52 minutes ago, Franklin said:

.... And yes, I have seen non-collimatable cells with the 3-bolt focusers as well but not after Vixen changed their colour scheme to blue when the Sphinx range was released, around early 2000 I think? 

Sounds right. I think my ED102SS F/6.5 and it's sister scope the 102S F/9 were some of the last designs to use the older Vixen styling. They took a breather for a couple of years and then produced the F/7.7 103 ED which used a different mating element glass with lower lead levels I believe. I'm not sure exactly when Vixen moved from a 3 bolt focuser attachment to the screw on arrangement though.

Apologies to Dave for diverting this thread onto other Vixens. That 80mm F/15 looks wonderful and will be well worth some TLC to iron out any minor issues 🙂

 

Edited March 25 by John

[F15Rules]

No apology needed John..I love all things Vixen, old and New!!

Dave