mikeDnight

It is white though Peter, so it's lighter than it would be if it were black!

It really depends on the target. I think X200 is a safe bet on most nights on pretty much anything, but your Tak will easily exceed X400 on a good night. The Moon, Mars, Mercury and Venus all take power well on a steady night. Jupiter and Saturn are better viewed at around X200. Obviously you'll have to match the power with the local seeing. I bought a 1.6 extender Q a few years ago and it was superb, but more than a bit fiddley at times. It was without a doubt the best image amplifier I've ever used, being completely transparent! However, the Tak is so good that it doesn't need the Q to reach high powers. Star images and colour correction are perfect with or without the Q in the light path, so it may save you an awful lot of money if you can try one out before buying.

This is my solution! I can get a tad more in-focus by using a SW low profile 2" to 1.25" adapter. However, I have to admit I'm much more prone to use higher powers and a Barlow with my Tak and binoviewer. I'm pretty happy with mono views of star fields and nebulae.

Yes Gerry. Unscrewing the locking screw, being careful not to lose the small bass disc that may be loosely attached to the locking screw by grease, you can access the hex screws.

It may be the cover that straddles the pinion bar is screwed down too tightly. If you remove the green cover you'll see a metal cover straddling the bar, which is held in position by two small Philips screws. If the screws are too tight it could cause resistance when turning the coarse focuser. The screws should be barely tight enough to hold the metal cover in position. Then replace the green cover and MEF plate. Another possible cause may by that the focuser is stiff because the tension grub screws, situated on the top of the cast focuser body are too tight. There may be glue filling the grub screw holes, but its soft enough to push an Allen key through to the grub screw. If you decide to free the focuser movement a little so that its buttery smooth, you'll need to be very careful to loosen both grub screws on the DF/DL focuser equally and only fractionally, otherwise you may introduce image shift. ( The DC focuser has three grub screws situated on top of the focuser body).

Mine's flawless too, and its touch sensitive and it shows no hint of flexure in the plate. Love it!

I know, and still wake up screaming! ?

"Not in perfect condition" = character.

I've never known of a Tak clamshell springing open or the locking nut coming loose. I'm pretty certain it wold be headline news on the world's astro forums if they did. I'm pretty certain that the dovetail/mount interface is where the real danger lies and not with rings or clamshells.

If I were you I'd sell those green clamshells quickly and get more primuluce rings. Those long DL's need as much support as possible to prevent their lightweight, slimline tubes from drooping.

It looks fantastic Steve!

Rings when Tak offer a superb, beautiful, matching and superior clamshell? And the rings are red for goodness sake. What would possess anyone with a modicum of good taste to put red rings on a beautiful, elegant, white, blue and silver Tak tube assembly? It would be like putting Micra wheels on a Porche.

Ditto! They are truly excellent scopes!

My MEF focuser has been on for a couple of years or more and its worked flawlessly. I've never had a screw loose!

Spending a small fortune on upgrading a good focuser to a state of the art focuser, when you're talking about Takahashi, is really testament to just how much the owners appreciate that incredible lens. If someone gave me an FT to put on my scope i wouldnt complain, but until that day I'll be content with my humble MEF 3.

These things just keep turning up! Dave told me that RVO had a second hand 7.5mm Ultima, which strangely turned up this morning, and Dave also sold me a 7.5mm Ultima that also turned up this morning. Thanks Dave! Now I have a bino pair of 7.5mm's that will give me a silly high power of around X400. Should be good for Mars when its only 4" arc!

I'm quite content with my MEF 3 micro focuser and would happily fit one to any Tak scope, even the longer DL. I find it very precise even at very high powers, so when the undulating atmosphere subtly defocused the image, the lightest touch of the MEF 3 fine tunes the image again with no effort. Although an FT would be a nice addition, I would personally find it hard to justify the expense when the MEF 3 performs the task admirably.

Thanks for the heads up on these Dave. I've now got a bino pair of 18's!

The post man kindly handed me a parcel this morning, which I found after opening it, contained pristine 18mm and 12.5mm Celestron Ultimas.

You could easily make a retractable dew shield from some flexible plastic. Art students often use large plastic cases for carrying artwork, and these cheap cases are perfect for making a shield, as the plastic is quite flexible. My home made dew shield is made from such flexible plastic, which I lined with black felt stuck down using pray on glue. Then the shield is joined together using a stick on Velcro strip. The additional dew shield was made quite long and the scope doesn't dew over, despite being only 300yrds from a river.

The Vixen mounts came in black originally, then green, but some vendors such as Orion in the US had black mounts made by Vixen but with the Orion logo. More recent incarnations of the same mount came in White with blue trim. First were the Polaris and Super Polaris, which had altazimuth ability as well as equatorial. The GP and GP DX came later but didn't have AZ ability without doing some jiggery pokery. Then came the White GP and GPD2.

That's a gorgeous Super Polaris Chris, with a lovely looking classic scope mounted on it. I bought a 102mm Vixen F13 from Peter Drew in 1985/86. It gave great views, even of deep sky objects. I still have a picture of M82 etched into my minds eye after the F13 with a 40mm Kellner revealed not just M81 & 82 I'm the same field, but the mottled texture of 82 along with the dark dust lane that bisects it across its width. Stunning and breathtaking!!

Hi Fozzie, Yes, I loaned my late friend Philip a white and blue Vixen GP some years ago, but it was a Meade 127 triplet he had and not a 152. It was still a hefty beast though, yet the GP on his steel pier had a damping time of 3 seconds or less, depending on how hard you hit the pier. It's definitely a strange hobby! Phil later replaced my GP, which was on permanent loan to him, with a much larger Meade equatorial, then an EQ6. The trouble with the EQ6 was that he'd forfeited the wonderful manual overide option of the GP, plus the EQ6 by comparison is a bit of a monster. That was a big mistake! Although the Meade mount looked impressive, he'd have been better mounting his telescope on a bed spring. It would not stand still even in the lightest breeze! A look of regret I would say! I honestly think you are wise to keep hold of that faithful old girl, as with the appropriate couterweights she'll probably carry pretty much anything you put on her. As regards what she's worth, well you said yourself that it would cost £1000 to match her carrying capacity with a modern alternative, so she's worth at least that amount. Of course a GP DX would be a step up if you ever felt the need for a greater load capacity, and you could probably grab one for around £400 to £500. It amuses as well as saddens me that the Vixen GP's are now looked on as old-fashioned. I'm also glad that I'm too old to be influenced by fashion; not that I ever was in fashion! The upside of this of course is that these wonderful mounts appear second hand at very reasonable prices. I think there was one on AB&S only a few days ago for £250. I'd buy it but I've already got two!

Here's are three pics showing my FS128 mounted on a Vixen GP back in 2003. My friend Gain is posing gleefully at the eyepiece end.

I suppose prices are relative. Although the SW EQ5 looks similar to the Vixen GP they are not the same. The engineering on the Vixen is to a much higher standard, and the basic GP head will carry a much more massive load than the EQ5 ever could. That's not to say the EQ5 is a poor mount, it isn't, its just that the GP is better. I've seen second hand GP's sell for under £200, which is almost unbelievable. I bought a GP three years ago for £300, which had electronic drives and a superb tripod. The tripod alone is worth £200 of antibodies money, so to me it was a steal!