LewisM
07-03-2014, 10:51 PM
Last year, I bought a Takahashi FS60CB. It drove me NUTS, totally nuts - not coming to focus with regular gear, inordinate adapters and flanges and doodads, hole spacings not lining up with ANY Vixen rail (except the $70 Losmandy universal and a near $100 TV mini rail), and the focuser travel TOTALLY ludicrously small. And then the views through it (whilst INCREDIBLE as a terrestrial scope) disappointed me grossly astronomically - I was seeing dancing red and violet on Jupiter and Sirius, and the moon has a fringe and then some. In fact, I felt the achro finder was better!!! So, I sold it.
Col "Flashdrive" recently offered one, JUST when I was looking for a widefield imaging rig (even considered an ED80), at a price IMHO BETTER than a new ED80, and the FS60CB came with a Feathertouch focuser - 2" - ALL THE TAK ADAPTER WOES FLEW OUT THE WINDOW! So, I agreed to it, and drove down and collected it.
Not only meeting Col finally was great, but the scope was as new. Perfect. Happy to take her home. Also bought an alt-az mount from Col, seeing I don't find enough suckerholes lately to warrant setting up the equatorial :rolleyes:
Took her home, grabbed a small Vixen bar from Steve Massey and SLIGHTLY widened one hole (tiny bar cost $20 - a copy of the TV one, minus one hole :) ) and had it mounted. The terrestrial views were beautiful as usual, and the astronomical views were markedly superior to the prior example I had (the old one had the Tak printing on the objective ring, whereas this one, made in 2013, has no printing) - Jupiter was pretty fine, the moon good, but Sirius did show a red flare or two. That's where Matt "Kunama" comes in.
Matt rang me, and offered the extender-Q section he had redundant after getting the FS76 upgrade section. I snapped it up at Matt's good price and installed it today (note to self - read Tak's instructions, NOT Claudio's incorrect text on his webpage!). terrestrially just perfect, but it's astronomically where it truly excells - NO CA/fringing on ANYTHING I looked at. NIL, ZILCH. Just incredible views, and now being f/10, focus was not as fiddly :)
The banding on Jupiter was SO apparent, it split close doubles with absolute ease and it showed M42's trapezium SO beautifully, I didn't even want to look at the nebulosity so much! All this in a 60mm objective!!!!
I hated the FS60 before... now it's an absolute DREAM come true. If I can find an FSQ106 with a Feathertouch already installed, it'll be mine in a heartbeat :)
Oh, and like I like to say, the extender Q makes this look like a telescope, and not a spent toilet paper roll :)
Col "Flashdrive" recently offered one, JUST when I was looking for a widefield imaging rig (even considered an ED80), at a price IMHO BETTER than a new ED80, and the FS60CB came with a Feathertouch focuser - 2" - ALL THE TAK ADAPTER WOES FLEW OUT THE WINDOW! So, I agreed to it, and drove down and collected it.
Not only meeting Col finally was great, but the scope was as new. Perfect. Happy to take her home. Also bought an alt-az mount from Col, seeing I don't find enough suckerholes lately to warrant setting up the equatorial :rolleyes:
Took her home, grabbed a small Vixen bar from Steve Massey and SLIGHTLY widened one hole (tiny bar cost $20 - a copy of the TV one, minus one hole :) ) and had it mounted. The terrestrial views were beautiful as usual, and the astronomical views were markedly superior to the prior example I had (the old one had the Tak printing on the objective ring, whereas this one, made in 2013, has no printing) - Jupiter was pretty fine, the moon good, but Sirius did show a red flare or two. That's where Matt "Kunama" comes in.
Matt rang me, and offered the extender-Q section he had redundant after getting the FS76 upgrade section. I snapped it up at Matt's good price and installed it today (note to self - read Tak's instructions, NOT Claudio's incorrect text on his webpage!). terrestrially just perfect, but it's astronomically where it truly excells - NO CA/fringing on ANYTHING I looked at. NIL, ZILCH. Just incredible views, and now being f/10, focus was not as fiddly :)
The banding on Jupiter was SO apparent, it split close doubles with absolute ease and it showed M42's trapezium SO beautifully, I didn't even want to look at the nebulosity so much! All this in a 60mm objective!!!!
I hated the FS60 before... now it's an absolute DREAM come true. If I can find an FSQ106 with a Feathertouch already installed, it'll be mine in a heartbeat :)
Oh, and like I like to say, the extender Q makes this look like a telescope, and not a spent toilet paper roll :)