John

3 hours ago, Telescope40 said:

Very, very nice John. Looking forward to your first light report.  Comparison please re your previous / current refractors. The Vixen and ED120 if you still have it. 

ENJOY 

Regards. John 

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

14 minutes ago, t0nedude said:

Unfortunately I had to let that scope go to help fund a FL102s, and the green tupperware container left with it, I did ask them if I could keep it but they refused  Seriously though I still have a slightly newer (by a few years) one that came with the fluorite.. We should create a new thread titled 'Show us your green tupperware container' 

Tony.

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

2 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Some great, droolworthy cases and green-and-black collections. I am not going to replace the XWs to turn my collection pure green-and-black, however, especially since a couple of parfocal rings means my Delos EPs play nicely with the 3 XWs I have. The LVW 42 is safe as well

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.

15 minutes ago, iPeace said:

If all goes well, it gets wower tomorrow...

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

Excellent setup Stu

Looks slightly "military" from some angles

My little Vixen ED102SS has been posted on this thread before but it's proudly showing off the Lunt Solar Wedge in this shot

I've been aware of Takahashi and Astro Physics as top end brands for the 30+ years I've been in the hobby but I didn't see them discussed much on this forum in the past. On Cloudynights, all the time of course.

It's interesting when they are discussed by owners of course because they move from "mythical beasts" to real items with pros and even a few cons, like all equipment.

Was it Kelling that used to have the "Takahashi Alley" section ?. I was never sure whether that was a good thing or not

It's interesting - in the past on the forum (I've been a member for around a decade now) I can't recall Takahashi gear getting mentioned all that much. Now there seems to be loads on show. Have our pockets got deeper or perhaps or have these things become more accessible ?

I guess it will depend on whether the high contrast of the refractor can bridge the 55% increase in aperture of the C9.25. If the difference was just 1 inch it could be close but I think my money would be on the C9.25 for galaxies at least. I've not actually compared them though.

For really large objects, seeing objects within the context of the starfields and object groups the faster refractor would have a marked advantage in true field size.

They are very different scopes really - the sort that complement each other rather than compete perhaps ?

Oh, goodness, this thread is going to damage my bank balance one day

Superb scopes folks

35 minutes ago, Commanderfish said:

Nice review and very interesting scope. Has anyone compared the views in one to a 5" (127-130mm) Apo?

There are some posts from folks who have done such comparisons in this thread from the Cloudynights forum:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/491788-152mm-ar-vs-102mm-apo/

Very nice looking scope and mount setup Gary