My Takahashi FS-60CB arrived today with the Teegal Alt-Az mount as did my Zeiss ABBE-II Eyepiece set, so I was ready for some fun.
Seeing tonight was fair- and there was some cloud coming in and a full moon.
Now given I don't have a diagonal at the moment, my first object was the moon as it rose and was 45 degrees from horizontal. This I did straight through with the Panoptic and the 1.6 extender-Q.. very pretty, sharp, black.
Now my first Zeiss ABBE, and straight away the background drops to another shade of black. I have never seen the moon etched quite like this before. I kept driving down through the pieces to 4mm at 142X. Still sharp, but the seeing is swirling around a bit.
Hours later I get home after picking my wife up from work. I can see Jupiter is up. I havn't seen Jupiter for a couple of years, and I'd never managed to see it in my Sky 90.
Given how high it was in the sky, I decided to save my neck and managed to get the Takahashi TwnView bino-viewer connected. Once again I started with the Pantopic 24mm... this frames the planet and its system of moons perfectly, banding stands out on the surface.
Next up are the 12mm RKE's, these don't work in the Binoviewer. They don't come to focus together at the same point! Argg.. in go the 8mm, and these work fine and give 93X
Now I am seeing, and I'm not kidding my best view of Jupiter ever.. in a 60mm refractor. Planet banding stands out so clearly.. I can't really believe it. Its better than I experienced with my Nextstar 4" Mak, and I think I also prefer it to my old LX90 8" SCT, though the moons around Juipter don't hint at their shape like they can in the larger scope.
Seems crazy but its just so clear. I can't wait until I get a diagonal in there and try Jupiter out with the Zeiss ABBE.
Now I'm really excited to check out the planets in my FS-128 when it arrives this week.. this will surely be exciting if the FS-60CB looks this good.
I wish that all those years ago I had just started with the 60mm Tak and slowly worked my way up.. it would have saved alot of wasted time and $$.
Daniel.
PS. Oh, a simple Alt-Az mount with slow-mo controls is brilliant. Just point the scope where you want to go, no motors or backlash, no GEM weirdness and the eyepieces always stay at the right angle
Takahashi FS-60CB First Light
