Saganite

Very very nice Philip, an excellent eyepiece.

Jules, you are forgetting that I sold the Antares 7mm to you after I purchased it from Dave. It is a superb Ortho. I now have a MRG 7mm and a University Optics 7mm, both of which I believe to be as good.

In that case Paul, when you have time, see if you can find a Nagler type 1 7mm eyepiece, or a Meade UWA 6.7mm, really not that fussy.

Hi John, I must have reasonable sky over my village, as I can easily pick out the double cluster on dark moonless nights, with the unaided eye. The LVW 42mm is not the best for the scope, I agree, because of the large exit pupil it yields, but it works well enough, and is the widest AFOV that I have; I bought it for use mainly in my 5" f15 refractor, in which it excels.

Mine works superbly well in the OOVX12L f5.3 so it should be good.

This little jewel of engineering arrived in the post and was fitted immediately. It works beautifully.

Congratulations Jeremy. A keeper for sure !!

A And more ! These are simply superb in each of my scopes, from f7.4 to f15

I use the Baader T2 2" prism diagonal in my 4" Tak and I could not agree more.

Highly enjoyable read. Thanks.

Beautiful scope Ade, wish I had one.

Priceless Dave. ?

Hi Simon, Something else to consider, I wasn't aware of them.

Cheers Simon, but I have thought of this, which is what the hacksaw is for. The nosepiece on the Denk will take a little trimming, as will the Tak 2" adapter. All millimetres in the right direction. You surely didn't think it was the Tak Tube did you ?

Hi Dave, These seemed to be the perfect answer, but I have realized that they will not work for me , as the thread on the focuser tube of the FC100DC is M56. However, I have just ordered from FLO, the Baader Ultrashort 1.25"-T2 clamp, which with a light path of 11mm should save me about 15mm over the T2 clicklock that is currently fitted to the prism diagonal. That, I hope will sort the problem, if not, I have the hacksaw ready !

Something very similar is what I think is needed , Thanks Stu.

Stu, Mike, Dave, and stargazer McCabe, I really appreciate your efforts to assist, and particularly of interest are the adapters in Dave's post, so I have sent a PM to Stargazer McCabe, who lives just a twenty minute drive away along the A1, to avail myself of his generous offer. Stu, I am confident that the OCS's with my bino will work with a bit more study.I can't help thinking that I have probably removed too many sleeves for them to do so, and so a bit of experiment is in order, but only after I have achieved use at native focus, that for me is paramount. With a bit of luck, the Clamshell may well arrive tomorrow, I have been informed.

If I had been able to binoview with a pair of 8mm LVW's, believe me I would have done so, and I have said before that I would dearly have loved to use a pair of LVW 22's, but sadly they are too bulky for my IPD.

Hi Stu, Neither of my OCS's enable focus to be reached, which is a bit odd as Denkmeier's are supposed to. However, I set the telescope up, removed the 2" adaptor, and held the bino and diagonal assembly against the threads of the focuser. This allowed me to reach focus on trees at about 200m, and that is far as I can see with the scope resting on the breakfast bar, but that is a step in the right direction. By measuring the gap between the diagonal and the focuser, the 2" adaptor would need to be reduced by 9mm. I think there is just enough 'meat' on the adaptor for me to do this and still be able to re drill and tap the clamp screws. I now will have to wait for the clamshell to be able to focus on infinity, to ascertain how much more would need to be removed and depending upon that result, whether or not it is feasible. I will investigate the possibility of an adaptor to connect the bino directly, because eliminating the clicklock on the T2 would save more than enough in focus.

Hi Stu, Since I posted my set set up at the start of the thread I have removed an additional sleeve, so that , as you can see the 2" adapter fits straight into the focuser now. I don't know if it is possible to put a shallower fitting on the T2 prism, but even if it were, I think the bino nosepiece would hit the prism. At the moment, I can only think that I need to change to the 1.25" Tak prism. Unless I am being extremely dumb, and missing something. All help would be welcome.

Cheers Alan, It is probably me being a bit dim !

I did not sell it Richard , I bought it, on behalf of Mike, and posted it to him !! When I did sell my 8mm LVW to you a month or so back, I don't recall you being too concerned that I was selling a rare gem.

Thank you for the mention Mike. I thought it a good idea to present my new Takahashi 4" in a different way, but never expected the thread to take the course that it did. Unfortunately, my initial euphoria has been a little crushed because I seem to need much more in- focus than I have and yet there is nothing else I can remove.Focusing on objects just 30 feet away is all I can do, beyond that , I cannot bring anything to focus, so I will wait until the scope is properly mounted and then try objects in the sky.

I will do my best, but as the previous owner of my beautiful 5" f15 and now a Takahashi FS128 you know that it is going to be a tall order, as you have said that the D&G gives virtually nothing to the FS128 in terms of sharpness and contrast, and image quality, and the big 5" will easily take 100x per inch of aperture. Like most refractor owners, I feel something special about a 4" , how could I not ,when for a good part of my life I longed for a good 3" thanks to Sir Patrick , but always felt that financially it was beyond my reach.That a top quality 4" is now mine is very special, and for me , will not be in competition with my 5". The comparison though will be interesting.

FLO are awaiting a shipment, so probably a week or so.