Stu

Aaaarrrrrggghhh

Have you tried it pirate style?

That’s a shame, limits it’s use as a RACI finder with a decent field of view

This is a thread about celebrating ALL the wonderful kit we have at our disposal. I am picking up on your continued anti Tak sentiment and it needs to stop. We all know the 120ED is a wonderful scope, there is no need for barbed comments to defend it.

What a lovely looking setup Derek, looks very simple and very colour co-ordinated. The 50ED looks fab too, have you tried it out yet? Is that an Ercole it’s mounted on?

Simon, this continued sniping nonsense is becoming tiresome, please stop it.

I think we should have a vote on that Mike

You are quite right, the ‘correct’ adapter is the 304. I started down the Tak/Feathertouch route with an FS-60C and FC-76DC and these used the 302, which just so happens to fit the FC-100 too. Personally I prefer the look of the 302, it just seems smaller and less dominating, and leaves the silver ring at the back exposed, whereas the 304 covers this up. They basically do the same job, although I think the 304 may be ever so slightly shorter. There is a thread somewhere which I will try to dig out. DOH, it is in the thread above after all.

To me that misses the point. Why take a lightweight scope and add a heavy weight focuser to it? The 2” Feathertouch is totally capable of handling heavy 2” eyepieces and to me is much more in keeping with the scope. Non rotatable, but easy enough to rotate the scope in the rings, although having to loosen off four of them each time may change that.....

That was my logic Piero. I had experienced perhaps some older Tak focusers which had been brutalised by imagers and showed their age so I went straight for the FT. Yes, if the two screws come lose then the knob moves around a little which is something I’m not keen on. Hopefully as a new assembly yours will perform nicely though.

How do you find it Piero? I do wish Tak would redesign their focusers, that metal plate always seems a weak point and comes lose. Hope it works well for you though.

Yes, agreed. You’ve laid it all out very clearly so it should be very helpful for others. I’m interested (for other projects) as to how you get the PTFE to stick to the tape? Was this the degreasing step?

Nice piece of work Alan, wobbly focuser/image shift are very annoying so I’m sure this makes a good improvement to your enjoyment of the scope.

Lovely setup Dave. I was so tempted by that Vixen f15, it looks beautiful. Glad you got it! Looking forward to the results

Yum ?, looks lovely with matching clamp and focuser. Get yourself a Herschel wedge and enjoy the sun through it too, the views are stunning!!

Really John, it’s a great mount. You know it makes sense

I guess you will have to make a call on whether you think FLO and Es are incompetent or not?

Yes, it should settle after a few seconds if it is backlash I think. I do wonder if I have seen this effect too. It might be that the tracking works ok if you just goto but somehow gets turned off if you recentre the object. I need to check it out next time I use the mount.

I assume you mean mount Gavin? I suspect this might be a backlash issue. Does it vary depending on which direction you have just centred the object? It could be that the gearing lash is just unwinding before picking up the tracking again? Does that make sense?

I picked up a 1.25” 0.5x focal reducer on eBay for £8! I knew what I was getting, the description said it was in good condition with just a few scratches, but the images showed it had been dropped and that the bottom edge was a bit out of true. I think people think they can can be dishonest in descriptions so long as the pictures show any problems. Anyway, having cleaned the optics I can see they are in excellent condition, and the reducer works perfectly well; it threads onto eyepieces perfectly and it still fits into the diagonal with no problem. So, a small value risk which has paid off. Nice

Will you have to adjust the spacing between the Primaluce rings or will they fit in the gaps? I assume they don’t bolt to the Losmandy plate? Anyway, hopefully the Tak green will tone in with the Prima Red Regardless, the scope will be super safe with four rings and two clamps.

Great pictures, what could go wrong with such an expert helper?

Had to look up what an UBEC is! Handy little device

How on earth did he get that through the letterbox?? Great scope, enjoy!

Be great to see some first light reports with some of your new kit Richard.