Here's a first light I posted on my new FLT-132 over at CN:
My new WO FLT-132 arrived last week but tonight was the first chance I had to use it. It arrived in a very solid foam padded metal case surrounded by two cardboard boxes and appears to be in perfect condition. The scope is truly a thing of beauty, I found myself just looking at it for the sheer pleasure of admiring the craftsmanship.
I mounted it on myEQ-6 mount and starting at twilight started my gazing. It's lighter than it looks and I found it easy to port and mount. Unfortunately tonight was cloudy in patches and got misty as the night went on so the seeing was average at best but I was impressed by the scope. I started off with Venus and got a nice sharp edge and no colour at all even under high magnification (7mm Pentax XW plus TV 2x barlow = 264x). Later as Jupiter rose higher in the sky I switched to admiring its bands, again without a hint of false colour. I tried a few star tests on bright whitish stars and to my untutored eye the patterns inside and outside of focus seemed identical and nicely symmetrical with no trace of colour.
Star fields were a pleasure to view, nice perfect sharp dots to the edge of the view. I spent a while admiring the Jewel Box and just picking out the different star colours. I definitely enjoyed the subjective aspects of the viewing experience more with this scope than with my Newtonian, it was very nice to be able to sit back in my chair and alternatively look though the EP and gaze up along the axis of the large (to me) refractor, it made me feel like I was experiencing more of a classical telescope experience! Somehow refractors fit my mental picture of what a telescope should look like better than a reflector, irrational I know.
All in all I'm very happy, when the seeing improves I am going to try some comparisons with my 10" Newt to test the different strengths and weaknesses of my two scopes.
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea...0041_small.jpg
and
http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea...0042-small.jpg