Phenix Optics Co 127mm (5") Rich Field Achromatic Refractor

The following review was written and kindly sent to us by Duncan Church who has used this scope to produce some rather nice images, which can be found below and in the 'Our images' pages.

Our thanks to Duncan for allowing us to reproduce his review and images on our site.

Received it quickly and well packaged, thank you. It's a very well built and robust scope. I'm getting good wide-field images through it - though my main interest is deep sky imaging.

The CA isn't as bad as I was expecting, and is easily controlled using a Fringe Killer - though I didn't buy this scope for planetary work anyway. It's a good match for my EQ5-though would probably be okay on a smaller mount if you were imaging. The big aperture and short fl make imaging easier.

The are some downsides-particularly as I was expecting it to be simply a shorter version of the 1200mm 5" Phenix scope I got from Sky's the limit. It's not the same diameter OTA, despite them both being 5" optics. This means I have to swap rings for the two Phenix scopes (only a minor irritation). The finderscope dovetail isn't the same either - so isn't the common skywatcher (synta) standard. And the focuser ain't good. Mine was quite loose and had a fair amount of shift when changing from racking in to out. It will easily reach focus without a diagonal - a major plus point for imaging.

I've since stripped it to paint the inside of the drawtube - though I found this was already matt black so didn't bother. There is some adjustment of tension – the four screws the hold the coverplate over the focuser shaft also adjust the tension - they compress a brass insert. If you look at the plate you'll notice it isn't flush with the body. However it does lack the longer scopes adjustment thumbscrew, and two allen bolts to take out the rocking action. I might drill and tap the focuser body and add some nylon screws to take out the rock, though I think the adjustment I have made seem to have sorted it.

The 2" to 1.25" adapter is also quite nasty with it's single long screw- since swapped with a different adapter. Oh, and the dew shield can fall off when carried lens down in sub zero temps - sorted with a couple of bits of tape. 

I've attached an image taken with the scope on a goto modified version of the Phenix "TQ5" mount. 4x20sec exposures with a Canon 300D SLR with an astronomik CLS filter. I should point out that I'm new to this astronomy lark, so am happy with the results from this scope!

Overall I am very happy with the scope, esp. considering the price I paid and it has now replaced my 150mm Skywatcher reflector as my main deep-sky OTA. The only thing I'd say was it would be great if it incorporated the adjustable focuser/finder mount of the longer model. 

Many thanks for bringing this to the UK.

Regards,

Duncan