John

Sorry I'm a bit late on this Derek but I think the other posters have got it covered between them ! I have used the scope with my Lunt Hershel Wedge for a short session and it didn't explode or melt Not being a solar boffin I'm unsure if there are any major benefits in using an apochromat or ED doublet for solar viewing though - unless it's because they are generally well figured objective lenses I've not had enough use from the scope to attempt any sort of report on it but one thing that is noticeable right away with it is that it shows no false colour whatsoever, on any target, at any magnification and even inside and outside of focus (where most ED doublets do show a little colour). Vega was just a perfect white airey disk with 2 very fine and faint diffraction rings around it. It looked like an exemplar star test from an optical text book. Rather impressive

Great stuff Derek ! Just in time for the launch of the Ethos II range next month. More eye relief, 99.9% transmission and 125 degree field across the whole range

Thanks Gavin. That confirms my suspicions. Maybe a Delos + a Pan 24 then.

Great stuff Gavin How do you find the 14mm Pentax XW ?. I'm thinking of completing my 1.25" XW lineup for use with my Tak FC100 but I'm a little wary of the impact of field curvature which the 14mm and 20mm XW's have I believe.

That's really neat

What's the cool down time for a 14" SCT if it's not kept close to outside temperature ?. Must be several hours I'd have thought ? Amazing looking rig though - hope it works out

The total production run was 100. I think Ian might have got around 5 ?. I've read that Australia got a total of 3 of them !

Thanks Mark - hope you have a nice boat trip I expect I'll keep the Vixen. It does widefield better than any of my scopes and it's just a lovely and rare scope.

Thanks John. I will do some reports on the scope and how it compares to my other ones but I'm going to have a few sessions with it to become familliar with it before I set down any thoughts.

One more "rocket" in the room

Thanks folks - it's clear tonight as it happens. I must have been a good boy today !

Usually I introduce scopes that have come into my possession as "new to me". In this case though, this one is literally brand new and fresh from Japan. Takahashi FC-100-DL

Ah, so that one was the SP102M then. I had one of those way back when but mine was branded "Bresser" and had a matt black tube which showed fingerprints wonderfully well. As you can see from the photo (scanned from a 35mm snap) I had the Skysensor GOTO handset which was like a pale green brick with red LED characters. Not very user friendly ! No green tupperware box, alas

Lovely scope Tony - brings back nice memories of 1980's and early 90's scope catalogues and what I then could only dream of I hope you still have the green tupperware accessories container ! You scope must be from the same era as my Vixen ED102SS - the logo is exactly the same style and positioning.

They ought to engrave the details on a ring which could be installed either way up to suit the observers taste / OCD level. Major design omission IMHO

I'm keeping my XW's as well Michael

Another innovative idea from FLO put into action What will be interesting, but possibly a bit sensitive, will be the extent of the issues that ES Reid finds and corrects and how they pan out on a brand by brand, model by model basis.

Nice and now even nicer It's often said that the Ethos range falls into 2 "sets" depending on the scope thats being used: 21-13-8 and 17-10-6 The 4.7 and 3.7 seem to be considered as "standalone" items. Never being one for "rules" I seem to have a crossover set with some from each group but only the 21-13-8 group complete.

Is it the 10 or the 3.7 ? I guess we will have to wait and see .....

Very nice scope indeed ! After having a number of 6" F/8 achros and playing around with Chromacor's to remove most of the CA/SA I moved onto to my ED120 and found I didn't miss the additional aperture at all.

Very nice report and photos Mark The short view I had was rather like the enlarged photo that you post above. My "window" down here was around 10-15 minutes and that was it for the rest of the day. Still we saw it ! One thing I noticed was just how black Mercury's silhouette was. I thought that the umbra of the sunspot groups was black but Mercury was blacker still ! A lovely event even for my rather short experience of it and publess as well !

The clouds have been solid since my little peek at this event earlier plus we have had a fair amount of rain. I have a feeling that I was dead lucky to see anything from here today.

Yay !!! I just got lucky and I'm seeing decent views of the Transit here albeit through some cloud cover. Mercury nice and clear and what a lovely sunspot group to complement it Theres going to be some great images of this from those who have clearer skies but I'm so glad I've seen part of the event at least

Our society public viewing event in Bristol has just been cancelled My car is all loaded up with gear so I might stick some fuel in the tank and try and find somewhere clear and rain-free. Rather galling as it's about the warmest day of the year here today with loads of sunshine

The AZ-3 works quite nicely with a short tube scope and it's extremely light. I've used a 5" SCT on one with some success. I'd like to try the Vixen Custom-D mount that the AZ-3 was modelled on. My guess is that the Japanese made Vixen version would be rather nice