Yesterday my CFF 132mm arrived courtesy of DHL. Less than 4 months from ordering to delivery. All very well packed as can be seen, a whole box load of styrene chips came with it. I ordered this scope after realising that Astro-Physics were never going to make the 140mm F7 that I placed myself on the wait list for some years ago, and then thinking that I would be automatically transferred to the 130mm GTX list and finding this is not the case.
My main for the scope will be faint and difficult double stars, this, I think will be my keeper scope, as one day no doubt I will have to sell my 18" reflector.
Sits nicely on the EQ6, still some room to shift the cwts, but I think this will be used when I fit my 60mm finder.
First light was last night - just one hours use before clouds rolled in. Report later.
Thanks all. Yes I am very impressed with this scope. Mechanically it is absolutely perfect, the Feathertouch focuser smooth and delightful to use.
As for the optics - the first question I asked before ordering was whether the scope would reach focus with a prism diagonal (they have a shorter light path) and a Nagler eyepiece. Catalin advised me that any diagonal would need to take up 66mm of focus travel. On setup during the day I focused on what I thought was a distant tree, and popped in a 7mm Nagler - unable to reach focus with the rack all the way out. Big worry all day. (I did not ask for any special tuning for this scope, so I assume I have the general purpose version suitable for photography. I don't think I would ever be able to tell any difference anyway.)
Night came. Swung the scope to Saturn. Perfect view with still 10mm of focus travel left (moral of story - trees 300m away are not at infinity). Crepe ring clearly visible.
Then to Antares, Xi Scorpio, 2 Scorpio, Nu Scorpio - all stars well resolved at only 131x. And that my dear astronomical friends is the beauty of well made Apo refractors - you do not need high magnification to achieve good resolution. That along with the superb contrast (I noted that the sky between stars in clusters like M7 or NGC 6231 was very very black).
Having previously owned a 130EDT Astro-Physics, I believe that this scope is giving me every indication of being better in every way than the AP.
Sounds like a nice scope John. Having viewed through Ross's CFF140, I agree that their build quality and optics are certainly first rate though I can't compare to AP. The Cff certainly fared well alongside the TOA.
Did you get it tuned for visual or photographic use?
Unless requested otherwise, CFF tunes their lenses for photographic colour correction:
Considering that APO telescopes tuned for “Photographic” color correction can be used both for photography and for visual “work” (with prism diagonal), we believe this tuning of color correction is optimal (Zeiss tuned the color correction of their APQ series of apochromats very similarly) and it shall be used as the ‘default option’ for our apochromat objectives. We are happy to take special orders for visually tuned objective lenses, if the Customer prefers this type of color tuning.
(From CFF website: http://cfftelescopes.eu/optics/color-correction-lenses/ )
So, you think your CFF may be better optically than was your AP? If so, that is great news to me, because I have a CFF on order. :-)
Thank you.
Bill
Awesome news Bill. What model did you order if I may ask?
As for comparing CFF to AP, I think it is important to point out that CFF are significantly cheaper that AP telescopes. For example their website states that 132mm model is/was circa 70% of what a new 130mm StaFire would cost, and John seems to be very pleased with the quality of his CFF. I myself nearly pulled a trigger for a 132mm, beacuse of a very good aperture to price ratio (for a quality apo anyway), but the accountant at home did not agree to sign the cheque...
So, you think your CFF may be better optically than was your AP? If so, that is great news to me, because I have a CFF on order. :-)
Thank you.
Bill
Bill, I had one of the first "new ED type" 130 F8 delivered in late 1991.
At the time it was way ahead of anything on the market (no TOAs back then). My initial impressions are that this CFF is the optical equal of that scope - perhaps better. Manufacturing processes have improved in those 25 years, so some improvement should be expected. I have a fairly extensive observing log from those early AP years, it will be interesting to compare notes, the main problem is my eyes are not as good as they were back then, though this may be balanced by slightly better observing techniques.
What does impress me now is how good the AP 130 GTX is with a focal ratio of 6.3. That is where the big improvements have been made over the years, and I think at F6.9 the CFF will be slightly better than the GTX for visual work - which is what I do.
Just a baby .
