Kasai Trading Co, Japan, Check these scopes!

[glend (Glen)]

I ran across this site through CN and I have to say the products are pretty unique. The 8" knock Down Travel Newt is amazing:

http://www.kasai-trading.jp/zingaroe.html

weighing only 4.8kg and co-produced by RP-Astro (Italy).

Their little Pico-8 80mm Mini-Mak is a cute little scope, and priced at $220 AUD

http://www.kasai-trading.jp/PICO8e.html

[traveller (Bo)]

Nice.
Not sure about the hand held observations though.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Made in Italy: Oh no!! It will be like an Alfa Romeo. Unique styling, kind of cool and sometimes working, but unreliable as anything and a ***** [female dog] to fix. And the Japanese branding of an Italian scope is just weird.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by janoskiss

It will be like an Alfa Romeo.

Delightful to look at, quirky to operate (all the knobs will be in the wrong places - and that's BEFORE they fall off!), unreliable, prone to breaking down at the most inopportune time, ...

And yet ...

You just WANT one, you'll fall in love with it just from the sales brochure, you'll love it (and hate it) when you get one, and you won't bear to part with it, even when you know that there are cheaper, more practical, more reliable alternatives.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by traveller

Not sure about the hand held observations though.

I can almost believe it could work with a low power eyepiece.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page http://www.kasai-trading.jp/zingaroe.html , you can see a picture of it braced against the user's body with a guitar strap ("Gibson is recommended" - ) In principle, this could work with any light-weight Newt of 600 mm - 750 mm FL, using the strap to hold the OTA firm against the body, and the eyepiece is naturally at eye level, so you're not having to support the overhanging weight of the OTA with your hands, like you do with binoculars etc. (Makes me think I made a mistake in selling my Celestron 5" / f5 Newt!)

[glend (Glen)]

Put some guitar strings on the neck, add a pickup and there's your 'Stairway to Heaven'.

[JimsShed (Jim)]

The design concept is quite clever in it's simplicity. It would be interesting to see how rigid it is.

[blink138 (Pat)]

FIAT (fix it again tony!)
pat

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

I love these ones too, two pages on:
Kasai WideBino28
- a peculiar star-gazing instrument yielding 28-degree field of view with your both eyes. ...
NOTICE (1) : Galilean telescope system has no eye-relief. The best way to see the widest field of view is to "press" your eyes close to the eye lenses.