Vixen 80SSwt Refractor

Vixen 80mm SSWT

I have had a curiosity with the Heavens since I was a child, while hiking or camping at night my father would constantly have us children looking for satellites. With our necks strained for what seemed like hours looking for what we called “ man made meteors” he would tell us a familiar story about when he was in the Army back in the late fifties. This one particular night someone in his outfit cried out “Sputnik” he looked up and spotted the eerie almost surreal object, something he would never forget (what he most likely saw was Sputnik 1's Rocket Booster which was also in orbit). He told us how he was torn between amazement and fear, fear that we were now within Russia’s reach. My father had a terrible habit of repeating his stories over and over again as if we had never heard them before.... and I wouldn't of had it any other way.
             
Well twenty nine years later and I am still looking at “man made meteors”, clouds of gas, and chunks of rocks floating in space. But it has only been within the past four years that I have owned a scope, I spent hours on the web researching to find just the right one. My research had taught me to buy as much aperture as I could afford and what great advice that was. It was a 10 inch Dobsonian Deep Space Hunter, a Yard Cannon, it kept my interest and didn’t turn me off like many first Scope owners have fallen prey to.
     
I have owned and sold a bunch of scopes since then and last month I decided to buy a small 80mm refractor for simple imaging and to use as a portable grab-n-go scope. So in keeping with what works I decided to do my research. Well I found a wide selection of 60mm-80mm short tube's out there, some are high end telescopes with prices to match, while others are low end starter scopes riddled with plastic. I wanted something in between, I was leaning towards the Orion Short tube 80mm f/5 or one of its Synta sisters, until I came across the Vixen 80SSwt. I have dealt with Vixen products before and I have always been happy, so I decided to take a closer look:

 Optical Design Achromat Refractor
 Aperture 80mm (3.15")
 Limiting Visual Magnitude 11.3
 Focal Ratio f/5
 Focal Length 400mm
 Weight - OTA 5.07 lbs.
 Price $399
        
The price was a bit high for an Achromat short tube but Vixen is known for their quality so the price was expected. I was intrigued by the weight or lack of weight, it only weights twice as much as an 31mm Nagler, there are some short tubes that weigh less but I would chalk that up to more plastic parts. Wanting to try my hand at imaging I was glad to see the 80SS was a f/5 fast scope, and what clinched it for me was the flip mirror, perfect for a beginning imager like myself. Portable, fast, good quality, flip mirror, and dovetail im SOLD.
    
So I purchased it from one of the large telescope dealers on line. And within a week or so UPS was at my door handing me a tiny box about 15"x5"x6". I thought there must be some mistake, this must be the box for the accessories, so where is the box with the scope, there is no way a refractor, dew cap, finder, flip mirror, and dovetail could all fit it this micro box. Well I was mistaken, I opened the box and there was everything as advertised all neatly packed:

A80SSWT - 80mm f/5 OTA
Red Dot Finder
2" Focuser
Flip Mirror Diagonal
Dovetail Tube Plate            

My first impression was that this is a handsome looking scope, with its indestructible Vixen white paint job contrasted by the satin black flip mirror diagonal, and matching projection finder. Although I was disappointed to discover that one of the Vixen stickers on the dew shield had the corner already peeled up, which will only worsen with time.
              
Speaking of the dew shield it is not fixed or retractable like most 80mm but screws on to the lens cell, you simply unscrew the shield from the cell, reverse it, then screw it back on the opposite direction and you have a more than adequate dew shield. I like this feature because you don’t have to worry about a flimsy or worn dew shield slipping back when your pointed at zenith especially if your 5 minutes into an open shutter. The scope is 11" with dew shield in, and 14" with shield out. I would have preferred a metal lens cap but it is the typical plastic Synta style with the extra 40mm hole in center, it protects a fully coated 80mm Achromat lens with a nice purplish coating.

The finder is a red dot projection type made from aluminum, it is built like a tank and has some weight to it, and it is worth every penny, it sports a ruby/turquoise projection lens with 11 intensity settings for the red dot. The finder sits up nice and high off the scope so you don’t have to press your cheek against the focuser or diagonal to locate. This finder I am keeping for life!

There is no supplied tube rings but there is a dovetail foot that fits any vixen mount and can be easily removed with two screws and can be reversed to adjust for any unexpected balancing problems, like a camera or heavy eyepiece. You can take the foot off altogether to reveal a 1/4-20 tapped hole for a camera style tripod mount.

The flip mirror diagonal is a handsome satin black, I like the mirror because it helps to find an object without having to switch back and forth from camera to diagonal. After locating your intended object with an eyepiece in the top of the mirror you can flip the mirror and image with the camera in the straight through part of the flip mirror. The rear eyepiece tube unscrews from the flip mirror and your cameras T-adapter screws directly onto the flip mirror, a very nice feature. One bad point that I found is the flip mirror doesn't fit securely in the visual back, and there is a bit of play, which worries me, with the weight of the camera and all, but an inexpensive aftermarket back can be bought as a fix. I would also like to add that the scope does not come with an 1.25"-2" eyepiece adapter, you must supply your own if you plan on using a different "regular style" 1.25" diagonal.

The focuser is a rack and pinion with black hollow plastic knobs, the same style knobs that are on the Vixen Porta Mount. The hard plastic knobs are not very appealing at first but they do grow on you besides in the winter months they won’t freeze your fingers as much. Being a Vixen scope I wasn’t surprised to find the focuser to be very smooth, another nice feature is the oversized locking screw atop the focuser. The scope as a whole seems very well constructed minus the loose flip mirror, plastic lens cap and Vixen stickers, I like scopes that are all metal construction they give you a feeling of quality and the Vixen 80SSwt is mechanically no exception, not bad for under $400.
But how does it perform?
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I tested the Vixen in my backyard, I am lucky to have very dark skies and decent neighbors who keep their lights off....so far. At 6pm I set the scope up on my Vixen Porta-Mount to cool down. With a quarter of the Moon showing and about 3 hours from setting, I went back inside the house to wait. I returned to the scope an hour later to find a little breeze and the moon about 30 degrees above the horizon. With the flip mirror in place using a 12.5mm Orion Plossl at 32x I pointed the Vixen toward the Moon, not bad for a fast scope and considering the Moon is low I saw some false color a bit of a purple halo but fairly sharp images.

While still at 32x I could’t resist nearby Venus. I could make out that it was crescent with purple being evident but I was surprised how crisp it was being so low on the horizon. I wanted darker skies so I went back into the house for another 2 hours, and returned to a Moonless sky, much better. Saturn was just starting to peek up over the trees, still much to low, but Mars was straight up with Pleiades right on its tail. Still having the 12.5mm in place and using the red dot finder I easily lined up Mars and was very satisfied with the ease of the finder, Mars was a bright crisp dot so I bumped up the power using a 7mm Nagler Still a very small image but,I could make out some dark features and still crisp but let me push it a little more to 100x with a 4mm Burgess Planetary, after finding it again with the Slo Mo knobs of the Porta Mount it was as I expected not as clear somewhat mushy but the dark features still viewable. I didn’t want to break out the barlow, this scope isn’t designed for Planetary, only being a 400mm Focal length it is hard to bump up the power. My 4mm only gets it up to 100 power, the scope has its limits.

I wanted to try this scope on an object that it was designed for so I put in a low 14x power 28mm RKE and did a short hop over to M45, WOW now we are cooking, the Pleiades showed up as pinpoints and were still fairly sharp to the edge of field. I switched eyepieces to a old 21mm TV Plossl 19x, delightful. Now for the double cluster in Perseus using the same 21mm another winning image this is where the Vixen shines, also fairly sharp to the edge of the field. M31, again a fine view appearing as a bright cored elliptical smudge along with M32. I had a field day in Auriga with its abundance of deep sky objects M36, M37, M38, NGC2281,among others, this scope was built for this area of the sky.

I spent the next hour and a half spanning the Milky way only using low powered eyepieces 32mm, 28mm, and my 21mm getting lost in the Richfield views of the scope stopping now and then for a warm coffee, until finally calling it quits. This may seem strange but I find a great deal of enjoyment in cleaning and packing up my equipment at the end of a viewing, it gives me a chance to look over the eyepieces and scopes and to reflect on how well they did or didn’t perform. I find the more that I like a certain eyepiece or telescope the more I baby it, or give it a little extra attention to cleaning and packaging. Well this particular night the Vixen 80SSwt was carefully and snugly tucked into its box. Overall a very enjoyable night.
 
Pros and cons
   

Mechanically I really like this scope, the rack and pinion focuser is very smooth, I love the very clever designed dew shield, the durable white paint on a all metal scope, a well thought out and solid aluminum finder for easy searching, the flip mirror for imaging. But the flip mirror has a bit of play when mated with the scope that concerns me, not only for collimation reasons but for fear of dropping my camera or eyepieces. The stickers were an insult to this scope they resembled scotch tape and are prone to peeling.

Optically I am satisfied with the scope it has a nice purplish fully multicoated objective that gives crisp images with some violet fringing around the Moon and planets which is expected after all it is a f/5 achromatic refractor.
        
Overall I would recommend this scope to anyone looking for a Mid range quality/price grab-n-go. Not bad for beginner imaging and Ultra Portable I don’t know of an 80mm any smaller in length than this. If you want to look at the Planets and the Moon use a Mak, If you want to explorer our Milky Way and other wide field objects on Vacation or just a quick run outside the house than a Vixen 80SSwt is something to consider.