Highburymark

9kg sounds like a huge load for the AZ5 - even with a strong tripod. Unfortunately think you’ll need a beefier mount.

Here it is Jeremy! It’s in beautiful condition. Waiting for some ‘More Blue’ rings from FLO (also seen on the Epsilon 130 in the attached pic). These will help keep weight down, but the OTA is lighter than I was expecting, so thanks for your help. Swapped Tak bits for T2 spacers and BBHS diagonal. Maybe some views of Jupiter and Saturn and solar white light this weekend - though conscious 120mm might be less forgiving with average seeing than the FC100 for solar. We shall see.

Good idea - I’d be up for it - only caveat is we may go away in early August - going to make a late decision on holiday this year. I’ll try and make contact with two other NVers in the area - Gavin and Peter

Benvingut Kinan! - from my favourite city Barcelona. Glad to have you on board.

I’ve always thought the second best thing about Takahashi refractors was their weight (lack of), so light eyepieces are definitely to be recommended for the 76. There are so many wonderful light eyepieces available that there’s no need to go heavy. And there may be an additional benefit in the future. If you decide in a year you want to get into binoviewing, you will already have some EPs that can be doubled up, rather than buying pairs from scratch.

Actually I haven’t used it in eq - I use it in alt az for visual and I’m learning (slowly) about solar imaging and only need alt az for that, so haven’t experienced the technical issues that affect imaging. There’s a long thread on CN about this, most of it above my head as a rookie imager…..

Wow - best calcium animation yet Apollo!

Nice telescope. It will depend on your seeing, but I’d say those magnifications are much too high if you’re only looking for one high power eyepiece. Most nights around 180-200x will be the maximum usable powers on Moon and planets. It’s also quite a fast scope so you’ll need eyepieces that play nicely at F/6.5.

Excellent news - thanks for posting - haven’t been on Solarchat for a while so missed this. The two or three existing solar books on the market are a little out of date now, so looking forward to this.

🤣

Actually not who you might think - don’t want to divert potential buyers from the classifieds. Another option arose!

Well, these discussions sometimes have unintended consequences. I should have a rather exciting package arriving next week from another SGL member Jeremy - which wouldn’t have happened without this thread. I owe you one.

This is the Holy Grail for solar imaging from what I’ve read Michael - I know you’re based in the Netherlands but Astrograph is the main U.K. retailer for these systems - speak to Rupert if you need advice.

Agree - To me the 13.8 billion year age of the Universe, the one figure that we can grasp, is just as extraordinary as the scale. Relatively speaking, its age is tiny. And so much of what we can see around us has existed for a significant part of that brief amount of time. It feels like the whole experiment has only just begun - the Universe has only existed just long enough for intelligent life to have evolved in one place.

Agree. It’s an interesting telescope but probably a better instrument for dsos than Moon or planets.

Wow - I missed that it is a 6”!! That’s a definite ‘no’ from Mrs Highburymark.

Very nice, no doubt superb, and definitely attractive for night vision, but I will only ever own one 4/5” refractor (don’t have the space for any more), and it must above all be a great lunar, planetary and solar scope - which for me means F/7 or above.

Isn’t that just a doublet? Nice scope though. TS seems to be offering some highly competitive prices. Looks to me like they might be positioning themselves to take over from Skywatcher as the ‘go-to’ choice for affordable Chinese apos.

Admittedly, very little. SW Esprit 120mm is 3.6kg heavier for the basic OTA. APM sadly doesn’t do a direct competitor. Otherwise it’s larger Chinese triplets: The TS triplets are 130mm and like the Esprit, over 10kg. Not including the Vixen 115 as it’s a doublet.

I can only speak for the RST-135 - It takes a little while to familiarise yourself with the controller, but alignment in alt az is very easy. I park the mount in a south-facing position, and it’s a 2-3 minute job aligning on a target. Most of the time so far I’ve been using it for solar. Without any other alignment objects in the sky it’s usually fairly accurate with the first go-to - then just centre, confirm, and it tracks for about 10 minutes before the solar disc begins to move out of view, then just repeat the process and it’ll track for hours. Don’t want to veer too much from the OP’s report though. Would be interesting to know how the Crux performs in alt-az. The hope is that the idiosyncrasies of these mounts have now been ironed out and they prove reliable

Thanks Jeremy - have confirmed the basic OTA is 6.7kg. Guess with lightweight rings, vixen bar and Baader T2 diagonal I could get that total down to 8kg, still lighter than pretty much anything in its class.

Excellent report on a mount that’s had little coverage on SGL. I’ve got the Rainbow RST-135 and so far am also very happy with it. Agree with you about not wanting to push the payload too far. I currently run mine with a 7kg scopes - might go up to 8-9kg in future but not more. Also agree that traditional mounts are the way to go if size and weight aren’t an issue. These mounts are all about compactness and incredible performance - and not having to be too precise with balance.

Nice images Paul. Six days on the trot! Wow - weather’s been miserable in London. This afternoon had a partial break in the cloud though, enjoyed the view in hydrogen alpha, but white light was even better. Near head-on AR2835 showing lovely detail and some of the granulation you’ve picked up. 4” does seem to be a perfect size for WL observing

Thanks for replying Jeremy. I would love one. I do think it’s probably the perfect refractor. The best compromise between resolving power and weight. And mounting it wouldn’t be a problem. But it would require me selling my FC-100DC and most of my furniture. So perhaps just as well there’s a long waiting list.

Hi Jeremy, just wondering how you’re getting on with your lovely TSA120? In particular - how do views compare with 4” Taks? Is cooldown time an issue? The comparison pictures earlier in the thread are really useful to get an idea of size, but do you know if it’s 5.7kg or 6.7kg - typically advertised specs on various websites seem to flit between the two?