John

Not really, my FC-100DL is rubbish

I think the DL has a slightly tighter spot diagram, whatever that means. Probably more to do with the different focal ratio rather than differnt figuring quality though. The official blurb at the launch said this (Google translated from the original Japanese, so blame that !): "In recent years of refraction telescope, but Photo visual system short focus apochromat has become the mainstream, it is the emergence of these and differing length personality focus two ball fluorite apochromatic telescope FC-100DL. FC-100DL in the FC type which arranged the street flow light lens of the name behind, worthy of long focal refraction of f / 9.0, chromatic aberration, you get high spherical aberration less contrast image. Specifically, halo is approximately 40% reduction of the g-line against FC-100D of f / 7.3 (purple), and has realized the 97.5 percent of about 4% increase in the Strehl ratio that indicates the high magnification performance. (Data calculated) This aberration data is almost the same number as the three pieces ball apochromat, coma is coupled with stable image plane of the zero, I think that you understand that it is a telescope that has a high-eye viewing performance."

It's funny with scopes. Last year I bought 2 "dream" scopes, the Tak FC-100DL and the TMB / LZOS 130 F/9. They are both superb instruments and undoubtely the best scopes of their respective apertures that I've ever viewed though and arguably in the top few ever made at those apertures for amateur use. You would have thought that the old, slightly scruffy gold tubed ED120 Skywatcher would have had it's marching orders ?. But no, I keep coming back to the Skywatcher of all things. I guess that it's the whole package that is "right" with that one which includes size, weight, ease of mounting, cool down, ruggedness as well as optical ability way above it's price band. Still trying to figure it out .....

You would have thought that the additional 10mm might have given the edge to the TEC140 on double stars ? From what I've read, both objectives are of just about the finest optical quality that is available to the amateur I suspect you are going to have to compare the two night after night on a really wide array of very challenging targets to reveal any meaningful differences, apart from the aperture.

Additional aperture usually gives a better view of globular clusters. Whether 10mm is enough to see much difference will be interesting to find out

The 22mm T4 Nagler is a really lovely eyepiece. I swapped mine for a T5 20mm but I should have kept the 22 T4 I think

Nice 1st light report Gavin Funny how these scopes we dream about, while being excellent, still have their quirks when you look at them critically I have a Feathertouch on the TMB / LZOS 130 and it's superb. No surprise that the AP 130 delivers a better split of Epsilon Lyrae than the Tak 100 DL does but, IMHO, the Tak is still really amazing for a 3.9 inch I guess cool down comparisons are about oill spaced vs air spaced ? All very good stuff - look forward to more reports

I've only ever seen them when examining intra and extra focal star images and then only as very slight "nicks" at the edge of the diffraction ring pattern. If you view a star that happens to have a flat surface running somewhere roughly between your scope and the target (eg: phone wire etc) then you do get diffraction spikes of sorts which can be rather disconcerting !

Vixen must have, or have had, some sort of relationship with Synta I think. Certainly some of their scopes have been made by them. I'm thinking of the 100 and 80 SF refractors in particular. I don't know if this extends to other Vixen lines as well

I guess the APM 140 FPL-53 doublet is the next best thing ?

One reason might be that saving a few £'s on a less premium but still capable mount enables the Tak to be afforded ! My Tak and my LZOS refractors don't complain when I bolt them onto Skywatcher mounts - the views still look excellent

Very, very, very nice Dave (both of them)

Jupiter is ruling here right now GRS is showing really well ! Hope you have some clear skies with you Dave

I was only suggesting that it would be very nice to get 2 great 5 inch refractors together. Not a "competition" in any way The same way that the dob mob do - they seem to complement each others scopes rather than compete with them.

I realise that this probably can't happen but it would be so interesting to put the FS128 alongside the TMB / LZOS 130 F/9.2. I was looking hard for a FS128 when the TMB / LZOS came up nearby and at a good price but the impression that I gained in doing my research is that both scopes are right at the top of what has been produced for amateurs for the purposes of visual astronomy in the 5 inch refractor category over the past decade or so. I'm really looking forward to reading your reports on using this scope Dave

Excellent Dave - congratulations ! A lifetime scope if I ever saw one Now don't for goodness sake ever get rid of it

Another saying is "The squeaky wheel gets the grease"

An even more limited edition version then ? - limited to one of a kind !

Thanks The optical tube weighs around 9kg all up. The tube used is made of a material called Kruppax 50 which is light, strong and interestingly has proved totally resistant to dewing A lot of the weight is at the objective / lens cell end of course - it's a triplet after all. It seems to need both the CW's to balance soundly. Here are some more details of the OTA if anyone is interested: http://www.apm-telescopes.de/en/telescopes/refracting-telescopes-ota/apochromates/apm-lzos-telescope-apo-refractor-130-1170-lw-photo.html The scope is going out of production very soon - 114 units made in total since it's introduction in 2006.

There is a Skywatcher 130mm F/5 newt OTA on Astroboot at the moment for £35 + P&P. Lot of scope for very little dosh IMHO. Not even the price of a low cost eyepiece !

Fingers crossed here Chris

My 30mm Widescan III showed me excellent views of larger DSO's when I used F/10 scopes

Very nice Gordon I've not seen one of those Widescan III's for ages - I used to have a set of those !

Good news Chris I suspect the logical part of your brain is the one to listen too !

I guess we all must have different views / experiences on this. I had a Skywatcher Evostar 120 F/8.3 refractor on an EQ3-2 once, with the HEQ5 steel tube tripod, and the scope vibrated a lot when the magnfication got over 120x or so. It took ages to settle down which got in the way of observing at high power. A 5" SCT on the same mount was really solid.