dweller25

Hello and welcome to SGL. Your photos are good especially as Saturn and Jupiter are currently a very long way from us - they will get much closer (and bigger in the eyepiece) towards the end of the year.

Oops duplicate post 🤪

Many years ago I had a skywatcher 150mm F/8 achromat refractor and found it to be very good at low powers for deep sky objects. It was OK on the Moon at x100 but did show some Chromatic aberration. At x190 to x200 for the planets it showed strong colour smearing and the image started to get soft, a CA filter helped a little but a light yellow filter was better and cheaper but the yellow cast was off-putting. It was a beast to mount - a Vixen GPDX was not enough so ideally an EQ6 may be needed for high powers. It was beaten in all areas by my equatorially mounted Skywatcher 8” F/6 Newtonian - with Apochromatic views. Perhaps a modern alternative could be the GSO 8” Classical Cassegrain.

@ukskies My FS128 shows more planetary detail than my 100DZ but the DZ is so much easier to setup and cool down. I also have a Mewlon 180 which because it is short is VERY comfortable to use. It’s very close in performance to the FS128 and has superb contrast - I really like it and I am a refractor guy ! but it NEEDS active thermal management - I use a fan. Balancing performance, cooling and ease of use/setup I would put them in this order 1. 100DZ 2. Mewlon 180 3. FS128 I have a bad back that plays a major part in this assessment.

BUT…… Old Spock met young Spock 🙂

Yup, it’s real, made of plastic and has a Swatch quartz movement.

Wow and only £207

Have you added a finder or something else to the OTA - if so check with a torch from the front of the OTA to see if any screws are contacting the mirror when you focus.

Great setup Mike 👍

The older Taks had a tiny locking grub screw on the focuser to stop it rotating, newer ones don’t seem to have It 🤷🏻

I have the DZ and the focuser is not meant to rotate. The good news is that it probably just needs tightening up by gently rotating it clockwise. But it would probably be a good idea to speak to your supplier first.

A good, honest review 👍

Yes, there will be some good ones but It’s the one Tak I would steer clear of 👍

Guilty as charged….. My FS128 sports a Feathertouch 3035 focuser - in my opinion it is better than the original Tak focuser. AND I added a RACI focuser to my Mewlon and FC100DZ because the Tak straight throughs hurt my back. AND I replaced all the refractor clamshells with tube rings - one securing bolt is not enough for me. Why ? - because the optics are worth it 🙂

Fetch the rope boys, we got ourselves a Tak hater 🤣

Bless you 🤧

I am taktfully completely unbiased 🤣

Awesome scope 😃 You got it just in time 👍

Looks awesome to me 👍

Very nice setup 👍

Brilliant photo of an iconic plane. Many years ago Douglas Bader signed his “Fight for the skies” book for me. I still have it. It’s a brilliant read and it’s quite awesome what he overcame to fly the fighter planes during WW2.

+2 for the flextube 150P 👍

That’s a great image 👍

Tonight I used my 8x50 finder to line up Betelgeuse and something caught my eye. In 90 seconds I saw 14 satellites in the field of view ! Elon Musk - crimes against Astronomers - guilty as charged 🤨

Can you share a link for those Amazon connectors please ? 🙂