JCAZ

Serial Number Plate

Full Monty

A Little bit of leg.

The sarcophagus. 

Tube Ring in new blue with Vixen rail drilled for Tax tube holder

The usual Tak triple box treatment.

And so it begins

All items show that they have arrived in town, so delivery today for all three.  Good news is, I work 4 10 hours day with Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off.  Also it's Labor Day weekend so Monday off as well.  So I am having my coffee awaiting my packages.  Pics will be incoming today.  I'm in the zone.  

Well, got the item I needed from Texas Nautical - Vixen style dovetail drilled for Tak tube ring.  Probably should of thought all this through ahead of time.  Now I have three separate packages arriving tomorrow - scope, tube ring, dovetail.  At least I know it will be functional.  I have two mounts, HEQ5 Pro and AZ GTI.  Looking to perhaps switch out tripod on AZ GTI.  I have a wooden tripod, quite nice and compact, but the head/top is an odd design.  I think it is an old Russian TAL tripod.  Very well built, I am just going to have to figure out how to get the AZ GTI head on the tripod.  But I have two functional mounts for now so it not urgent.

Ya, that looks perfect.

Scope should be here tomorrow, but I am realizing I have a dilemma.  In the past I had a TSA102 on a Losmandy GM8.  i had a ADM plate I was able to mount the telescope to using the Tak tube holder.  Right now all I have is mounts with Vixen style mounting rails.  Does anyone make a Vixen style rail that will mate to the Tak tube holder?

Thank you the information, much appreciated.

1 hour ago, Stu said:

I use a Geoptic soft case for mine, decent padding levels and for my purposes it is ideal ie storage and carrying to or from the car or observing site. I guess I could pop it in the Genesis hard case if i needed too

I assume the DZ is not airline portable?

From what I understand, it may be. airline portable  I think it is 23" dew shield retracted and eyepiece extensions removed.  Honesty, I am not one to take a scope on a an airline, although ya never know.

A soft case was something I thought about.  I tend to pamper my equipment anyway so it would likely suffice.  Might still be a possibility. I guess I am trying to understand what might be available, but there's not a lot to choose from as far as I can tell.

4 hours ago, dweller25 said:

Congrats, please post photos and a first light review 👍🙂

Thanks.  I hope to get so I can use it this weekend.  Definitely some pics on the way!

Well,  I just got the call today from Texas Nautical.  Probably will be here by week's end.  They should be starting to show up everywhere soon I would think.   Now I would like a nice case.  Will probably have a custom Pelican case made.  Looking forward to getting this scope, should be some good glass. 

100DZ on the way!  Scope just arrived at Texas Nautical, being processed.

Nothing on cases?  Maybe I'll have a Pelican case made. 

I preordered a FC100DZ.  Does anyone have any good suggestions for a hard case for this class instruments?  

Thanks,

john

Anyone own the CFF 80 that can comment on its performance and maybe post some pics for scale.  I see a lot on the 92mm, not much on the 80mm.

Thank you in advance,

john

I agree.  There's some funny stuff going on in with the way Tak gets distributed in north america.  I certainly understand market entry and warranty service have value, but a scope going from $2700 t $3,800, ah, no.

So I guess i will either buy direct from Japan, or look at something else.

Well,

According to folks at Texas nautical, the FSQ85 comes "Ocean Shipped", while other scope may come by air.  SO for some reason this scope is shipped differently, and so that difference in shipping makes the scope $1,000 more in the U.S. then in Japan, but apparently only this particular model.  

41 minutes ago, Mr niall said:

Well they're Japanese for a start. And they're high ticket items which means that, Takahashi being relatively small, a limited distribution network probably means dealers have to buy the scopes and then sell them on rather than acquiring them through a sale or return deal that the sellers of more mass-market scopes enjoy. And that means a higher amount of risk - especially for warranty returns etc etc.

Once you add shipping, import taxes, the relative strength / weakness of the yen vs the dollar, distributor mark up, sale and then the dealer overheads of actually holding these things then you usually end up with a relatively small markup even for a higher price. 

As a Japanese seller or distributor you probably bypass a lot of that. A lot a lot.

But... the relative scarcity of Tak's and their reputation, means that some people might be "pushing the envelope" in terms of markup. Conversely they may be expecting to sell lower despite the advertised price.

I remember when it happened here in the 90's with Levi's and Nike Jordans. We were paying like double US prices. It happened with cars here too in the mid-90s. 

Edit: Have you tried asking them? They might give you an honest answer.

Thanks for the reply.  Ya, I am familiar with Takahashi as a company.  My question was why was this specific scope is marked up so much higher than others.  I will Texas Nautical a call and see what I can find out.

Question,

Does anyone know why an FSQ85 in Japan sells for $1,000 less than in the U.S.  - where I live.  I know there can be some variances between markets, but $1,000?