Highburymark

Could be Louis. It’s definitely not a TOE though - obviously the eye lens is nothing like that size, as well as the wrong number of lenses and groups.

There was a well documented problem with internal dust on Tak orthos and TOEs a year or so ago - see various CN threads - I had to return three eyepieces to FLO because of it. Maybe that’s what you are seeing Martin? I certainly haven’t detected any such scatter with mine. But don’t want to derail the HR thread - pretty much everything I’ve read about the two lines over many years suggests they are equally outstanding eyepieces.

And I can’t believe I didn’t buy any of them……

Mike - I’m not sure that second diagram is of a TOE?? I presume it’s a comparison of two different HR designs??

Just clouded over in London after a hour of clear skies. As Nik said, a nicely busy disc, and was able to get up to 140x in very good seeing. I always think of Easter as the official start of the solar season - should be a good summer.

As you’ll probably be aware, there are lots of Gitzo Systematics to choose from. They’re wonderful - among the best camera tripods on the market, but still for high powered astronomy, it’s advisable to take the advertised payloads with a certain pinch of salt. I’ve always stuck to the assumption that if your kit doesn’t exceed half the marketed payload, then you should be fine.

Excellent - lots to see at the moment - nice combination of proms and filaments.

Love that mount and tripod!

Solar Ha is my main astronomy passion, so my favourite scope is this one. Two 70mm Solarscope filters on a TV85. Great for days like today, working from home, when the sky is clear.

I remember you reporting this Martin - very interesting, particularly as the 3.3 TOE is my favourite of the line. I’d love to try a 3.4 HR. It’s probably a good sign that opinion seems to be split about the capabilities of the HRs and TOEs - but both have raised the bar in recent years for planetary eyepieces.

I think part of the perceived problem is that Takahashi owners on SGL are not just among the most passionate advocates of their scopes, but they also post more. A lot more. Considering the number of - say - Celestron SCT or Skywatcher ED owners there must be on this site, they must dwarf the Takahashi Ultras!

Didn’t see your post originally Louis. No - I’ve never had the pleasure of trying a 3.5 XW. Tbh edge colour is not an issue with the XW5 at all - I’ve only seen it testing the eyepiece indoors with an F/6 60mm ED, not outside observing. I’m fairly sure the Delos 6 I once owned also displayed a touch of colour at the margins. I never really warmed to the Delos 6 for some reason - certainly I find the XW5 more comfortable. But I loved the Delos 10 and 17.3 - comfort wasn’t an issue there. Can’t explain why.

TSA outside preparing for a lunar session. Seeing was very good last night - 272x was steady and razor sharp. After the Moon, said a final goodbye to Mars for a while - even at 360x, details difficult to pick out. At the end I did a quick sweep through the open clusters on view - M44, M35, and the Auriga clusters. Even in London skies, they looked beautiful.

Think it’s worth repeating here that you have to pick features with small details - intricate structures within craters for example, or the definition of minute craterlets, and study them - swapping between eyepieces, to see the differences I saw last night. It’s the final 5% that the specialist eyepieces provide - clear, but at the margins.

Well I finally had a chance to test the XO 5mm properly on the Moon this evening. I was studying craters around Mare Humorum - Gassendi, Vitello and Doppelmayer in particular. Scope was TSA-120 - XO gave 180x. Very simply, it was outstanding. Sharpness and detail clearly a level above my two other excellent 5mm eyepieces - Pentax XW, and Kasai ortho. But how did the XO match up to the TOEs? It’s very difficult to compare a 5mm eyepiece with a 4mm, but I’d say the difference between the XO and XW 5 was at least comparable to that between the Tak TOE 4 and Delite 4 (much as I love XWs and Delites, no complex widefield EP can compete with these specialist planetaries under good conditions), so moving from XO 5 to TOE 4 and 3.3 felt like a natural progression - the TOEs certainly are not outclassed by the XO. But I would not be surprised if the XO shows just a bit more detail when I experiment with the Tak extender 1.5x and other barlows - so can match magnifications better. Of course there is a price to pay - the XO is not the most comfortable EP with a manual mount (I have the Skytee 2). The minuscule eye relief wasn’t an issue though - I just hover above, even if I can’t see the field stop. Just means lots of slo-mo adjustments. But it was worth it….

Fantastic - thanks for posting the catalogues - looks like you got a very good deal with the DC. The OTA alone was around £1750 in 2016/17 when I got mine. So the 5” FS was more than double the price of the 4” !! Back in those days I only had a 4” Maksutov, so wasn’t aware of the more exotic end of the market.

Thanks Mike - wow, quite a bit more than I thought. So probably around £3.5k without accessories. How much would that be today? At least £4.5k - significantly more than the £4k TSA-120. Sadly I think the FC-125 will remain a dream.

Very nice….. In relation to the potential cost of a future FC-125 D, can anyone remember the new prices of the FS-128 and FS-102 when they were being produced?

I’ve had Delos 10, Delite 11, Nagler T6 11, Ethos 13 and Morpheus 12.5 over the years. Optically, I’d put Delite and Delos marginally ahead of the others, very sharp and bright, aberrations superbly controlled in my scopes, though they are all top notch. I really liked the 11 Nagler, though unfortunately it’s been dropped from the range now. Many other people rate the 13mm as the best T6.

My thought too 👍. My three diagonals are all T2 Baaders - Zeiss prism, Amici prism and BBHS mirror. I swap them around so sometimes am not even aware of which I’m using. The Zeiss prism does show slightly less scatter on bright objects, but they are all very close. The Amici is superb - highly recommended if you prefer lunar binoviewing to present a correct image.

You had me fooled for a second Mike……Much as I would love a 120/125mm FC - presuming it would be enough of a weight saving over the 6.7KG TSA-120 - I don’t think it would make sense financially for Tak considering the 100 DZ is now almost £3k. What would another 25mm of aperture add to the price? It would cost almost as much as the TSA. Maybe if they killed off the TSA-120, so a 125mm DZ could challenge Agema for best 5” fluorite doublet, and that would leave the TOA as the only Tak triplet?

Gerry - if you put that Zeiss zoom up for auction you might be able to justify a 180mm TEC to your better half. I tried buying one a couple of years ago and there were none for sale globally - new or used - over a six month period. Just lots of people trying to track one down.

The TV Plossls are all superb for solar ha Neil! They are my go-to eyepieces for binoviewing the Sun. The XF zoom is in my view as good as the TV Plossls, which is pretty good for a complex eyepiece, and some orthos are right up there too, but you won’t find better eyepieces for sharp, contrast rich views of filaments and prominences than the TV Plossls. As you’ve discovered, they are also pretty good for night targets too, which is more than you can say for the XF zoom.

Excellent summary, and tbh it didn’t surprise me. The slight advantage offered by the DF in the report may become clearer on the planets at high powers, or with stringent star testing. But maybe not. The Tak should pull ahead with its slower focal ratio of F/7.4 v F/7, so that makes the cheaper scope’s performance even more impressive. Back in the 1990s, I worked as a journalist covering the motor industry - though quite why, I’m not sure, as I had no particular interest in cars. When I started, I remember doing a story on how far BMW and Mercedes were ahead of the mainstream pack - 3-series v Ford Sierra etc. By the time I stopped covering the industry, the gap had narrowed drastically. The BMW 3-Series still had rear wheel drive as its USP (bit like Tak with fluorite), but the new generation of Ford Mondeos etc were light years ahead of their predecessors, and very close to the Germans in quality and engineering. It’s fantastic that such a quality package is available today at Starfield prices. Yet I doubt that Takahashi is particularly concerned. They may be two and a half times the price of the Chinese brands, but it doesn’t seem to be hitting their sales.

I agree Peter. It’s just like a 3-6mm TV plossl with decent eye relief. Way too expensive new, and not quite at the level of the top planetaries, but the perfect high power tool for travel. I sold mine years ago, but I still remember the views of Mars and Saturn it produced from the Canaries.