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I spent the best half of 5 hours last night in frustration trying to figure out the best mounting arrangement (using the brilliant SoCal rings) as well as being able to mount my Tak finder converted to guidescope...
I ended up ordering ANOTHER Losmandy universal (LONG) Vixen plate from Bintel.
I think Tak and Vixen DELIBERATELY obfuscate things - I thought I could fit the standard Vixen no-slip bar... narp, all of about 1.5mm TOO LONG for the FSQ tube, with dewshield extended and the rear ring abutting the focuser casting.
I did manage to at least fit the Baader Click Lock and use it visually. OH MY GOD! FLAT, RAZOR sharp, incredible colour and contrast! Whoever said fast astrographs are not good visual scopes obviously never looked through an FSQ106ED (and I can imagine what it will be like with the extender!). It was the clearest, sharpest image I have EVER witnessed in ANY scope. PERIOD. I cannot wait to image with it!
Ordered Sharpsky Pro robotic focus for it yesterday. Dave is drilling it out for the 3.5mm Tak 7:1 pinion. I cannot begin to imagine trying, even with a Bahtinov, focusing this at the reduced f/3.6 manually. Like 40 microns of critical focal range!
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