I decided to do a side by side comparison of my two recent acquisitions, a C4.5 and a C80, both of which are Vixen's from the mid to late 80's. I used identical Celestron volcano top 18mm EP's from the same era in both, and used the moon as my target. Earlier I had tested collimation on the Newt with a Cheshire EP and, to my untrained eyes, it appeared perfectly collimated.
The C80, of course, enjoys almost legendary status around here as being "freaky sharp", and so I anticipated it coming out on top. To my surprise, however, the Newt held its own. The image was a bit larger and a tad brighter and it was extremely sharp. The C80 image seemed a tad bit "cleaner" and with just a bit more contrast and sharpness.
Something of note is the absolute rock solidness of the Newt on the Polaris mount.
I also tested them on double star Mizar, and they seemed about the same to my eyes. I'm looking forward to repeating this test later this summer on Jupiter and Saturn. In short, the Newt really surprised me while the C80 continues to perform amazingly.
