Welcome to “Adapter Hell”!

[Dennis]

Hello,

Ian (Law) and I recently had a session collimating our Mewlon 180’s using his Takahashi Collimating Telescope and found the overall procedure quite straightforward. It seems that Takahashi marks the centre of the Mewlon secondary at the factory, presumably to help their technicians collimate each ‘scope.

The Takahashi Collimating Telescope requires the secondary to be marked thus and in the daytime, by pointing the OTA at an evenly illuminated white wall whilst viewing the position of the centre spotted secondary through the Takahashi Collimating Telescope, a few tweaks of the x3 Bob’s knobs and voila, you can get almost perfect collimation. There is a small, Perspex window on the side of the Takahashi Collimating Telescope which illuminates a small internal diagonal mirror.

I did find that my eye could wander (a little) around the eyepiece of the Takahashi Collimating Telescope and thus it was difficult to determine a precise central position, although this only required a small tweak with a real star test at night to make it perfect.

One problem I did have was that there was some slop in the Takahashi 2” eyepiece adapter when it slid into the Moonlite Focuser. The Tak 2” eyepiece adapter has a machined groove for the grubscrew and the actual length of 2” barrel is not very deep, so it can “rock” in the Moonlite Focuser.

When I removed the native Tak Focuser adapter and replaced it with the Moonlite Focuser, the Tak 2” eyepiece adapter had to sit some 2 to 3 mm from the face of the Moonlite Focuser for the x3 Moonlite Focuser grub screws to locate in the machined groove of the Tak adapter. This led to some wobble and caused my collimation to be somewhat off the first time around.

In the end, I cobbled together the following hodge podge of parts to get the collimation spot on using the Takahashi Collimating Telescope:

• Moonlite 2” to 1¼” adapter.
• SBIG 1¼” to T-2 (Male) adapter.
• Scopestuff SCT (Male) with internal T-2 Female thread to T-2 (Female) Adapter.
• Baader Hyperion T-2 (Male) to M43 (Female) Adapter.
• The Takahashi Collimating Telescope, M43 Male, then screws into the M43 Female.

Luckily I have acquired a box full of adapters over the years!

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy (David)]

LOL obviously you have a real telescope and not a pretend one like a GSO and Meade , Celestron ETC. LOL

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

I agree Dennis - owning a Takahashi is hell as far as adapter flexibility goes. Having one, you are beautifully engineered into having to purchase at least one of every adapter they make.

[gbeal]

Wait until you try the reducer. If there was one thing that drove me nuts with the Epsilon it was the requirement for such precision with the "metal distance". If you don't buy the actual item (read Tak, and expensive) you were cooked.
Gary

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by gbeal

Wait until you try the reducer. If there was one thing that drove me nuts with the Epsilon it was the requirement for such precision with the "metal distance". If you don't buy the actual item (read Tak, and expensive) you were cooked.
Gary

Hey Gary

I’ve already got the Tak x0.8 Reducer/Flattener and had to order the correct SBIG adapter from OPT in the States – a whopping US $120 for a nicely machined, anodized and knurled piece of metal!

Having said all of that, the kit does fit together nicely and the Tak parts are well engineered. But, when I tried to double up by using the SBIG T-2 Adapter with the Canon 40D, I was short of in-focus, by approx 2 to 3mm.

Fortunately, I had a Baader Hyperion T-2 (Female) to M54 (Male) Adapter and a Scopestuff T-2 (Male) to T-2 (Male) Adapter which I was able to cobble together in a slimmer configuration, providing me with an extra 4 to 5 mm of in-travel so the 40D now comes to focus.

A nice hobby for those cloudy nights – scouring the web and collecting adapters!

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

LOL obviously you have a real telescope and not a pretend one like a GSO and Meade , Celestron ETC. LOL

Hey Dave

Yes, there are many advantages to owning a ubiquitous SCT – all the 3rd party adapters and accessories are easy to obtain and relatively cheap.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

I agree Dennis - owning a Takahashi is hell as far as adapter flexibility goes. Having one, you are beautifully engineered into having to purchase at least one of every adapter they make.

Hi Chris

I guess I don’t mind the cost too much (ouch!); it’s just that sometimes, it can be really hard to establish exactly what you need for each configuration. Then, just when you thought you had it all figured out, actually chasing down the exact part can be another marathon effort. Luckily our hobby isn’t (mostly) too time sensitive.

Cheers

Dennis

[IanL]

Adapters and a Tak scope.

As you know Dennis I waited about 6 weeks for my collimation scope to come through. Only to find out I needed another 3 adapters which will be 10 days. Glad you had the same scope to check adapters. I would have seriously contemplated smashing the Tak to buggery by now with trying to find the correct adapters had you not had one yourself.
Thanks for your time and help.
Ian

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Luckily I have acquired a box full of adapters over the years!

A box full is right too.

[Dennis]

Hey Ian,

No - thank YOU for the opportunity to play around with and use your Tak Collimating Scope. Remind me to return it! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis