Vixen R200SS

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Vixen R200SS
Bright F No.
Wonderful Photography

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Vixen R200SS
Excellent contrast and resolution for such a fast f/4 scope with large central obstruction
and thick spider arms. Better than 4" flourite when seeing permits.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
Great contrast, widest field. Not much coma for the f/ratio. However, coma corrector is a must.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
Great Instrument for all Purposes. Worth every $$.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
Great telescope for astrophotography...It reduce exposure time!! Also provide sharp image, rich-field... It's best multi-purpose telescope.
But additional accessory needed...Coma corrector, Collimation tools, wide mount.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
Great scope.
If you use it visual you must buy the F 7.5 tele extender.
That eliminates the coma completely and is better than the standard coma corrector.
Great on the planets for such a fast scope.
Very portable quality scope.
I like it a lot.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
Great fast Newtonian. Very bright images. Wonderful for astrophotography. Coma detectable but very well corrected with coma corrector. Short, portable scope that is great for deep-sky work, variables and comets. I give a rating of 8 instead of 9 because of 3 things: 1) standard finder is too small (6x30), 2) the back of the tube is completely closed, which makes cooling down more difficult and 3) the focus is so close to the tube that the use of an off-axis guider is impossible and the focus knobs are too close to the tube so you have difficulties working with gloves on.
I use it on an older Vixen Super Polaris mount for regular observing sessions (works well) and on a Losmandy G-11 (with 8cm f/5 guide scope) for astrophotography.

Overall Rating: 8
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Vixen R200SS
This is actually brief review of the Celestron GPC-200, which is the same as the Vixen R200SS. Vixen made the scope for Celestron back around 1994. Astronomy Magazine has a review of this scope too in its Dec. 1994 issue.
Now, about the scope performance:
Great optics for an RFT. Views of Jupiter and Saturn up to 178X did not degrade.
Great wide field views at low magnification, could fit the entire Pleaides cluster in a view with 30mm eyepiece (27X). Coma corrector works very well with the scope. Very portable tube, light and short f-ratio excellent for astrophotography.
Drawbacks: Takes a while to reach equilibrium with surroundings. Collimation don't look easy in the dark. Tube a little hard to rotate in the mounting rings.
But that's complaining too much! This scope's advantages for outweigh the disadvantages.
Needs equatorial mount of at least Great Polaris "magnitude".
Will post more reviews after more testing.

Overall Rating: 10
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Vixen R200SS
I voted 10 a second time for this scope because of its optical performance. I tried coupling a 9mm eyepiece to a 3X barlow lens, yielding 267X magnification on this scope (800mm focal length). I was rewarded with exceptional views of Jupiter and Saturn during periods of clear seeing conditions. Lots of cloud bands and festoons visible on the surface of Jupiter and I could see Saturn with its myriad of moons (I counted about 5, or was it 6?) Saturn looked 3D, like a floating ball with a ring around it. The Cassini division was plain as day, but an unstable mount (SkyView Deluxe -> too small!!) prevented me from further scrutinizing Saturn's surface and features on the rings. Will post more reviews when I get more time. Can't wait to use the scope under dark skies! =)

Overall Rating: 10
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Vixen R200SS
Great scope! Is this scope made in Lebanon or Zaire?

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Vixen R200SS
This is the best medium sized reflector you can get for astrophotography. Extremely fast especially for ccd work. The best features are: optics very well corrected that show uniformly distributed diffraction rings both in and out of focus; very sturdy and precise focuser; rock solid tube and secondary holder that are not prone to flexure. It's not a full 10 vote for the following reasons: collimation is extremely critical at such a fast f/ratio but the retaining screws in the main mirror cell are difficult to operate; the coma corrector is a must both for visual and photo use; even with the coma corrector mounted you need a brand name eyepiece in order to get coma free images. In the end: a very well crafted instrument for serious photographic or scientific use. Not recommended for novices. The GP mount is more than adequate and it easily supports the R200SS tube plus a guide scope.

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
this scope performs exellently in all areas.very even diffraction rings in and out of focus. like any fairly large scope it is fairly sensitive to seeing conditions, but when conditions are good, mine can handle 400x plus if needed on planets. better than a friends 114mm refractor(at twice the price for tube ass).very surprising given the 30% obstruction(diameter).the vixen f7.5 tele-extender(for visual use) gets rid of coma completely.very fast for photography.
excellent bright mirrors(multicoated). big 2" smooth alu focuser .needs to be well collimated to get potential quality.everything very solid and sturdy and holds coolimation very well. collimation screws on main mirror a bit fiddly.use the coma corrector for photography which eliminates coma almost entirely to edge of view of wide photo adaptor.excellent mount and mt1 motors.(these motors are very tough and have a lot of talk.very practical size and weight for a biggish scope.dovetail tube mount is 2seconds and rock solid.the 6 x 30 finder scope is bright and wide angle and also mounts by dovetail, and stays alligned very well after repeated
mounts. everything about this scope inspires confidence and you want to use it.
quick and easy for mobile and setup. excellent price-performance ratio.
what more do you want!?
also came with excellent 5 and 20mm vixen lanthanum eyepieces.no cheap gunk here.(so many other scopes come with the cheapest accessories possible)
zr1jpl@hotmail.com
south africa

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
to add to my rating:
this is a keeper and a lifetime scope.
zr1jpl@hotmail.com

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Vixen R200SS
Using this scope with a 30mm, 60degree AFOV eyepiece, the views are spectabular!! A full 2 degree plus FOV to scan the milky way, the pleaides etc.
Further testing: This scope splits the Double Double (Epsilon Lyra) cleanly. I used a broken 9mm eyepiece (one lens cracked) and a 3X barlow (267X) and the double double was evident. I think that a slightly lower power would work too.
On the planets, Saturn is sharp, but background is not dark, perhaps due to scattered light from eyepiece.
Compared to a 6" semi-apo and a 6" f/15 refractor nearby, the scope kept up pretty well, althought I would say the views through the refractors are sharper and the background much darker. Fairer comparisons will be made after I get enough $$ to replace my broken 9mm. Clear Skies!!

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Vixen R200SS
I just bought this scope for my son as a christmas present.
I've heard it's good. Definitely better than the little StarMax
he was begging me to get him so he could have some experience with
GEMs. I know the R200SS has a better GEM (damn it's the Vixen GP, much better than that shaky one. My son will love it!

daSentinel

Overall Rating: 9
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Vixen R200SS
This scope needs to be perfectly collimated. There's some coma of course but quickly you forget it. It performs suprisingly very well on planetary even if the large obstruction eats the contrast. It handles very easily X200 on planets and you can push to X300 and X400 to the moon. If you want to be pleased by this scope : forget the vixen eyepieces. Use clavé or something like that with this scope. I had to use a GPDX mount or the range of mount. GP mount is too week to perform well with it. If the focuser wasn't bad i would have put a 10.

William.Guyot@univ-bpclermont.fr

Overall Rating: 9
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=38496

Vixen R200SS
I had purchased this telescope as a portable astrophotographic instrument. For its price, the optics are very good. Nearly identical intra and extrafocal diffraction patterns. If possible it is best to opt for the DX mount. The accessories i.e. Tele-extender, coma corrector, guidescope and GA-4 illuminated guiding rectile are exceptional. Over all, with its accessories this scope is a very good all-around scope and an excellent fast astrophotographic solution. I recommend it to anyone looking for a cost effective and portable deep-sky telescope. Its performance on planets is also very good.

Overall Rating: 10
Optics:10 Mount:9 Ease of Use:9 Value:10
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Vixen R200SS
This scope is great for astro-photgraphy. Don't expect razor sharp shots but it is ideal for the learner as you can take good shots with short exposures with a DSLR and stack them.
F4 means it takes an exposure very quickly.

Not hard to collimate if you use a laser collimator and know the procedure. I had it down to 5 - 10 minutes.Collimation is important as being a very fast scope coma is just around the corner for slight out of collimationness.

Focuser lacks travel and should be replaced with the Moonlite one.

Camera can screw onto the coma corrector but ends up at an odd angle and is not adjustable. That would need investigating into how to handle that if lots of astro-photography was going to be done.

Fit and finish a bit cheap but adequate, not endearing like a Tak scope.

Visually not that great as low power but if you want widefield views it is hard to beat.Designed to be an astrograph and not really a visual instrument particularly.I did not explore it too much as a visual instrument as other scopes performed much better in that regard.

Best shots I have taken so far were with this scope.

Greg.

Overall Rating: 8
Optics:7 Ease of Use:8 Value:8
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
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Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=421255

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