SuburbanMak

Based on a couple of hours I'd say yes I am very happy with it. I've a couple of ADM parts that are helping matters. A replacement for the original SW clamp https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adm-replacement-saddles/adm-dual-dovetail-adaptor-for-az-gti.html & the dedicated ADM Tak Clamshell-Vixen plate https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adm-vixen-type-v-series/adm-vixen-type-dovetail-bar-for-takahashi-7.html Together its all pretty solid and as vibration free as anything I've run on the AZGTi - at high mag there is a tiny bit of vibration when you focus etc but damps down I'd say in less than a second. No vibration visible when using tracking even at high power. I am sure there are heavier mounts that are even steadier but I haven't noticed it as a problem other than on windy nights with an 80mm f15 'frac on board - still ok from a weight perspective but you do start to notice the moment effect with the longer tube. Didn't see this at all with the f7.4 100 DC. It's also really lightweight.

@cajen2 - you put a little hat on it. This is a neoprene Lens Hoodie from Wex. https://www.wexphotovideo.com/lenscoat-hoodie-lens-cap-medium-black-1019928/ Obviously that is somewhat soft, so if I was packing say for carry on I would put the main lenscap over the top, its a loose fit but would further protect the end if snug in a flight case/camera bag etc.

I know they say any new equipment purchase my contain clouds, but this is just ridiculous…

Hi @cajen2 - the dewshield on my DC unscrews easily and shortens overall length by 3" / 76mm. I have the Geoptik bag for f7.4 refractors and with the focuser in 1.25 inch mode and fully wound in it is a perfect fit with almost nothing to spare with the dew shield in place. Best, Mark.

Thanks for the kind words @mikeDnight - time really does fly by when you're having fun! As for the finder stalk, you make a good point. Mine will have to fit fairly snugly into a Geoptik bag for safe transport out to darker skies & I am fairly certain it won't fit with finder attached. I am mounting it via the clamshell & ADM Tak-Vixen bar which does give something robust to hold on those nerve wracking transits with a dew covered tube! I realise that alongside many more hours at the eyepiece the next stage of my development as an astronomer involves the deep study & appreciation of handles...

Yes it works perfectly well with the original AZGTi pillar. Its supplied with a shorter one, 60mm. Can't comment on this, I bought the mount head only and am running it on a Berlebach 312 Report, with which it pairs well from a stability perspective.

A few weeks in yes, I've been running a 127 Mak + Telrad on one side and a 2inch converted ST80 on the other. Nice mount, states 10kg capacity - 6 on one side & I don't know whether its just because its new or it has slightly beefier motors, all seems to run a little smoother than the single AZGTi (which I also own and have used extenstively for the last couple of years).

Thanks Magnus! In my world that would also translate to "new guitar" too

I don't know about "better", right now after my recent round of splurging its probably more just a case of "skinter"....

Thanks @JeremyS - happy to report that the finder screws have just turned up in my final pre-recycling check of the Flo packaging. They are just little fiddly bolts though so as my main use will be grab & go, I think I will be ordering the ADM quick release bracket next time I have a Flo basket worthy of the postage! ... I'd noticed that you do seem to have a little experience with the brand yes Yes, I was leaning toward some More Blue rings which are a bit lighter and do allow easier attachment of an additional RDF etc, but after watching the video of the guys in Tokyo building their sand-casts I think I may have become a purist in this regard!

Cheers - the sharpness was immediately apparent (well, once I got rid of that extension tube anyway!) and I was struck by the contrast on M57 in particular given the sky & moon conditions. Bodes (no pun intended) very well for nights out under really good skies!

Thanks @Stu , I can't wait to get it out to a darker site.

That's a great report of a painstaking observation there! Thank you

Thanks @Littleguy80 - I’ll be sure to write up the adventures I have testing it out over the coming months. I expect to be collecting plenty of photons!

Perfect, thank you @Mr Spock - I was wracking my brain trying to work out how I might have transgressed the Ts & C's It could be something to do with my having posted from my laptop and then added the pics as an edit from my phone right after. Thanks for the rapid moderation!

I just had a first light post disappear from the Scope Discussions forum in the Equipment section. Entitled "First Light on a barely used Takahashi FC 100 DC". I'm now getting a message that says I don't have permission to view it, anyone else experienced this and now how to get it back?

Well, typing that title gave me goosebumps! I had a really nice day on Sunday driving from one end of the South Downs to the other, from Winchester over to Eastbourne to pick up a used Tak FC 100 DC from a very nice chap who has made the inexplicable decision to give up the hobby. I savoured the trip and took the route over the Downs listening to some civilised music. The seller had mentioned that he'd only used it three or four times since purchase last Feb, and all was indeed pristine, paperwork and original receipts & even a Tak sticker present & correct. The business side took 45 minutes and then I was on my way back, giant, exciting, triple-ply coffin type box stowed in the back. I kept checking in the driver's mirror to make sure it was real. On getting it home I paired it with the clamshell I'd taken delivery of earlier in the week from @FLO and got it mounted up on a Berlebach 312 Report. It looks fantastic. For now I'm running it on my original AZGTi, not the new AZGTiX - mainly because I want the security of the much better than standard ADM clamp on my older mount. This, pairing to the ADM Tak-Vixen bar mean I've a really solid connection to the mount. Now I know that the point of all this is in the views and the observing, but there is a separate aesthetic pleasure to owning anything that is beautifully made. As a kid I hankered after a "proper telescope" and for little me back in the late 70's / early 80's that meant a long, white-tube refractor. At the time I never got further than a Tasco 40mm with a weird built-in variable power eyepiece (even that gave me some memorable evenings squinting through it at the moon, Jupiter and M42 whilst it perched on a wobbly tabletop tripod balanced on the boot of Dad's Triumph Toledo!). On my return to the hobby at the beginning of lockdown (courtesy of a family 50th birthday present of a Skymax 127 Mak on an AZGTi) I quickly developed a thing for picking up some of those old fantasy telescopes on eBay (Towa 339 80mm f15, Hilkin 60mm f13, Prinz 60mm f11.8). My point here is that the Tak with its duck-egg green, crackled-glazed, hand-cast clamshell & focuser and its off-white, car-paint gloss, reeks of craftsmanship & utterly pushes all those nostalgia / wish fulfilment buttons for me personally before I've even looked through the thing. Suffice it to say that riding on a Berlebach 312 Report & the AZGTi with counterweight, this sure looks like a telescope! I encountered a tiny snag attaching the finder in that as far as I can see (and I've been back through all the packaging) the finder bracket was not supplied with attachment bolts and the screws on the finder attachment points on the scope are way too short to use. Turns out they are a standard M5 thread and I've managed to cobble together something for now from my bits and bobs drawer - a bit Heath-Robinson but it'll do while I work out if I'm prepared to spend £63 on the ADM quick release bracket! So after an hour or so of admiring the deep green lens coatings & (I am not ashamed to confess) slewing it about a bit indoors on the wifi mount, I thought about actually taking it outside... While Clear Outside was showing all red, the Met office had a cheeky moon peeking out from behind a cloud for a couple of hours from midnight down our way. Sure enough as most of the rest of the household went to bed, I bit the bullet and cradled my new purchase out into the garden, an easy carry and if anything a little lighter than with the fully-loaded Mak on board. An approaching full moon dominated but seeing looked steady, transparency variable with some bands of high cloud - my main goal here though was to have a quick look and align the finder. I excitedly popped in my existing Tak prism, new Morpheus 12.5 and, not aligning the mount at this point in case I only got a few minutes between cloud banks, swung to the Moon as my first target. I set up my chair and assumed the position at the eyepiece and.... couldn't see a damn thing! The best focus I could get was a large gently swimming disc that might have been the moon, I tried a couple of different EPs, 32mm Plossl, new-to-me baader Morpheus 12.5mm, Hyperion 24mm, BCO 18mm - nope, nothing reaching focus. Don't panic! I went indoors and dug out my original 1.25 SW mirror diagonal - same result. I was feeling mildly alarmed at this point as this was not what I'd been hoping for! After a good deep breath I thought things through and took a close look at the focuser, sure enough there was a longish extension tube attached - 80mm - which once removed solved the problem. With the Morpheus 12.5mm at 59x there it was, an absolutely superb view of the moon. I exclaimed something that translates decently as "I say, that's a splendid view!". Down in the SE corner on the terminator I could see a couple of peaks & a crater rim that looked like they were floating in space - the crispness of the line delineating them from the main body of the moon was like nothing I've seen in my Mak or 10 inch Dob. The vast numbers of tiny craters popping across the fully illuminated area seemed sharper and more noticeable than in the Mak & more akin to the jump in resolution going to the 10", I know its not optically possible for the 4 inch to be resolving the same features, but the effect through increased sharpness felt as dramatic. Just a stunning view. I was joined for a time by number-2 son, on his way back from an ill-advised Sunday night at the pub, who was similarly blown away. Looking around, the sky had cleared a little further so, after the usual finder-alignment fiddle (slightly refined on the Tak from those old Towa/Tasco days but essentially the same system), I set about North aligning the mount and despite some high haze figured I'd try a few different targets. Whilst aligning on Arcturus I went either side of focus with the Hyperion Zoom at 8mm, 92.5x, and was rewarded with beautiful, even circles - seeing really wasn't bad either. On to M3, not really resolving but standing out well against the background despite the moonlight and awful local LP in my garden. A couple of doubles - Cor Caroli, Algieba, Porrima - all looked superb in the moonlight and, the acid test for me as its a real toughy with the Mak's particular diffraction pattern, Izar (Epsilon Boo) - split easily and beautifully with a lovely yellow/blue-green colour contrast. I am going to be looking at a lot of double stars with this scope the images are just perfection. Now it wasn't the night for DSOs but I thought I'd take a quick look at M13 starting with the Hyperion 24mm 31x (which seems to perform quite nicely at this FL so no need to invest in the ES or APM UFF equivalent right now based on first look), moving up to the new Morpheus 12.5mm (59x) lovely crisp view of the still unresolved glob between its sentinel stars, and finally stepping up through the magnifications with the Baader Mk IV Zoom, again another of my existing eyepieces performing well at f7.4, at 8mm (92x) just beginning to see some "diamond dust" star resolution and perhaps a hint of a darker lane. As a final punt I tapped in M57 and picking up the merest smudge in the 6x30 finder was rewarded, still using the Zoom, with a washed out but perfect smoke-ring in space. Very good result considering the moon phase. I slewed to the Double-Double, rising E above the houses and streetlights, which I initially acquired easily enough but as I was racking up the power to split, the views began to degrade rapidly, stepping back from the eyepiece I realised that the clouds were closing in again. The town clock struck 2, I was amazed as I'd have said I'd been out 45 minutes or so but in fact two and half hours has slipped by with this super-crisp, contrasty thing of beauty and I guess that says it all. Can't wait for the cloud to clear!

Not strictly the postman as I spent most of the day driving to collect, but am now the very proud owner of this thing of beauty (a year old & as new). We can no doubt look forward to a prolonged cloudy spell…

Ha! Not sure that's possible - besides the Mak will stay in the stable, its a lovely 'scope and was a 50th birthday present from the family, I'm sure I'll figure out a role for it

I work on the basis that if one finds oneself over-socked whilst out one can do something about it, whereas undersocked can be session-limiting. (The same holds for long-johns, although you have to be confident you're in an isolated spot for that one...)

1) There's no such thing as wearing too many pairs of socks. 2) There's no such thing as a bad session - time spent observing is better than time on the sofa. 3) If the moon is up, get a glass of wine, go in the garden & look at some planets, doubles & bright clusters, then look at the moon. 4) If the moon is down, get in the car, go somewhere darker, look at all the other things. 5) Prepare in advance to find the targets you are looking for... 6) ...but if it isn't working, don't get bogged down on hours of fruitless searching, tour your favourites. 7) Sketch what you see - even if you never show anyone it makes you look harder. 8 ) Read up on the astrophysics of what you've seen that night when you get in over a nice cup of tea and/or a whisky.

No worries at all, in fact thank you! I was already seriously considering a premium upgrade to the ST80 anyway and had put in offers on a couple of TV76 & 85s, really just made me rethink which 'scope I would get the most out of upgrading and what I would get the most satisfaction from. All part of the process

I am ridiculously excited tbh, there I was all set with my Mak 127 & ST80 side by side when I started reading that darned "Is it time to get a 4" APO?" thread with everyone waxing lyrical, then the final straw the Actual Astronomy podcast last week was a history of Tak 100mm's & that was it...

Geoptik refractor bag and a Tak accessories bundle, hmm, now what’s missing from this picture?

I appear to have paid the deposit on a used Tak FC-100 DC to be picked up on Sunday, it was only a matter of time...