TAK is Back!

[E_ri_k (Erik)]

Here it is! Had the pleasure of observing through it on the same day it arrived, and the optics look amazing! I'm itching for some good weather to get the ball rolling again. 10 months with no time under the stars is far too long!

FYI, don't break your Takahashi scope! I haven't got the repair bill yet, but shipping back and forth was about $2K.....

Erik

[issdaol (Phil)]

Originally Posted by E_ri_k

Here it is! Had the pleasure of observing through it on the same day it arrived, and the optics look amazing! I'm itching for some good weather to get the ball rolling again. 10 months with no time under the stars is far too long!

FYI, don't break your Takahashi scope! I haven't got the repair bill yet, but shipping back and forth was about $2K.....

Erik

great to hear the you have your Tak Bak :-)

10 Months !!! Thats why you need multiple Tak's ! :-)

[RickS (Rick)]

Glad you finally got it back, Erik

[E_ri_k (Erik)]

Originally Posted by issdaol

great to hear the you have your Tak Bak :-)

10 Months !!! Thats why you need multiple Tak's ! :-)

If I could afford it I would I see you have 3!

Originally Posted by RickS

Glad you finally got it back, Erik

Thanks Rick.

[gregbradley]

It looks great on the PMX and your pier. A nice clean looking observatory there as well.

Greg.

[Exfso (Peter)]

It really is a pity that our local Tak distributor cannot do any servicing, pretty poor I reckon. There is definitely no one in Australia that is capable of working on their stuff either. There was one company said they could, but they trashed my 130 and they have since gone under anyway. That was a very expensive exercise.

[LewisM]

There are a couple actually who CLAIM they can work on Taks here, but I would not trust even one of these plumbers. In fact, I cannot think of a single outfit in Australia doing scope repair - regardless of maker - that I would trust. I have seen the end result first hand at someone's "fix" of a high end Tak - simply hopeless and could have been done better by a kid with a pair of safety scissors.

If I had a Tak collimation issue - which touch wood has yet to happen - it would be back to Japan or Texas for repair. Having now disassembled a few varieties of Tak after some bodgy work was done on them, I am now confident enough to tackle 90% of any issues that may arise (focusers, MEF's, sliding dew shields, doublet collimation, cleaning FSQ's, repainting....) but ONLY on my OWN scopes or with special request (I repaired H's FSQ-106N and will do Phil's TSA-120 focuser soon)

[E_ri_k (Erik)]

Originally Posted by Exfso

It really is a pity that our local Tak distributor cannot do any servicing, pretty poor I reckon. There is definitely no one in Australia that is capable of working on their stuff either. There was one company said they could, but they trashed my 130 and they have since gone under anyway. That was a very expensive exercise.

It is a shame there is no other option. Like you said, a very expensive exercise!

Originally Posted by LewisM

If I had a Tak collimation issue - which touch wood has yet to happen - it would be back to Japan or Texas for repair. Having now disassembled a few varieties of Tak after some bodgy work was done on them, I am now confident enough to tackle 90% of any issues that may arise (focusers, MEF's, sliding dew shields, doublet collimation, cleaning FSQ's, repainting....) but ONLY on my OWN scopes or with special request (I repaired H's FSQ-106N and will do Phil's TSA-120 focuser soon)

I guess the process is relatively straight forward, its just (for me anyway) not a very comforting feeling tinkering with something I'm not familiar with. I am so paranoid that something will play up again I'm scared to use it I had go at translating the Japanese manual you sent me Lewis, it kinda made sense, but the grammatical differences made it difficult to decipher properly. If I have any issues in the future, touch wood I don't! I'll let you know I don't want another trip back to Japan.

Erik