Good advise , I have spoken to Claud at 'Astronomy and Electronics' Australia and New Zealands sole Takahashi dealer , on this and he say's the same , Send the scope to them and they will forward it to Takahashi in Japan , its the only guarentee of total job satisfaction and not voiding any warrentee's , and
as I see it ist a much to expensive gamble on your equipement not to get any issues sorted properly .
I personally would not let any one play with my TAK's optics , its optics are just to GOOD !!
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Brian.