Tak on a Dob - First Light

[Scooot]

I waited a week for the Wity and Diagonal so last night was my First Light.

The 24mm Panoptic is to be my default eyepiece in the Tak which gives me a 4.4° FOV. I don't know if it is, but this seemed a lot bigger than with my finder.

First up was Albireo. At 120x in the dob it was split by what looked like a cm, both stars were ablaze displaying the usual colour difference. In the Tak at 15x it was very different, but just as good in its own way. The two tiny stars were split by a hair's breadth, but looked tiny in the massive FOV. The colours were the same, maybe one or two other stars stood out near the edge but most were faint in comparison to Albireo which made it look lonely amongst them.

In the Tak the field around the Ring was dominated by Sheliak and Sulafat, both were about 30% in from the edge. There was no sign of the Ring though, no matter how hard I stared. A quick look in the Dob with the Ethos and there it was, a very large smoke ring. Back to the Tak but this time with the 10mm Delos, I could still see both Sheliak and Sulafat, but now surprisingly, the ring was visible in between. It was a small round smudge, I thought I could make out a hollow in it sometimes, but maybe that's because I knew what it was. It was a stunning view, and although nothing like the Dob it was just as mesmerising. I spent a long time soaking up the view. Sheliak with the Panoptic was a single star. With the 10mm it became a double, and in the dob it always looks like an arrow head to me with another 3 stars around it.

The Ethos in the dob split the Double Double, the Tak split the Double of it. In the Tak however I could also see vega, which was just a bright star, whereas in the Dob it was an un-dipped headlight with defraction spikes stretching across the FOV. In the Tak I could also see another bright star, which tempted me to centre the dob on it. It turned out to be a nice double, Lyr1, which I read is often overlooked being so near the Double Double.

I had to look at the Double Cluster, it's one of my favourites, but in the 16" I can only get one at a time, albeit a tremendous view. The view through the Tak was so different, not only both NGCs, but also the little string of stars leading to Stock 2, and beyond this what looked like an interesting Double (I think it just looked like one).

My most memorable view of the night was NGC 457. In the Ethos it fills the view, it's so bright with many other stars inside the main cluster. I looked in the Tak, and at first I couldn't see it. There were lots of stars, and as I stared I suddenly saw it. A tiny, very tiny, group of stars forming an owl shape. In fact it looked more like a man with his arms out. I was fascinated by this, a mass of normal looking stars in the FOV and this solitary pattern. It really highlighted to me what a small piece of sky I usually peer at through the dob. The view was easily as good as the dob, but just different.

To the right of NGC 457 was a bright star, I looked on the iPad and could see it was Ruchbah. So I looked up at the W of Cassiopeia, counted across, Caph, Shedar, Navi, there it is, so I could just picture where the Owl Cluster is.

I looked at much more and came in after about 3hours at 2am, just as the moon was rising and the clouds rolled in. It was great fun and the baby Tak is a lovely little scope. I really enjoyed seeing the big picture as well as the close up view.

Thanks for reading.

[xtreemchaos]

cool firstlight mate,nice report, and what a cracking setup. thanks for posting. charl.

[estwing]

very nice Richard...I think i'll be mounting my telementor on the mirror box on my next Dob...

[Stu]

Looks fabulous Richard, how did you find the balance?

You should try sticking a bit more mag on it too, it will split the double double no problem

[SimonfromSussex]

Nice report Richard. Did you try any of the large Cygnus nebula?

The American nebula is great comparing wide field and close up, you might even sneak the veil?

[Scooot]

Looks fabulous Richard, how did you find the balance?

You should try sticking a bit more mag on it too, it will split the double double no problem

I had to cobble together some weights which I balanced on the handle of the mirror box, and it was fine after that. Except when I nearly knelt down to look at the moon as it was rising, and it slipped a bit then, although it probably wouldn't have if I'd removed the Ethos from the dob. It was a bit heavier moving it around but still very smooth. With the Wity, diagonal and panoptic it weighs 2kg, so about 1.7kg extra after removing the finder. I don't think I'd want anything heavier though.

Also I wouldn't want to use the Tak as a finder, I'm not sure if it's the lack of cross hairs or maybe it's just the wide FOV I had with the Panoptic, but it wasn't easy centreing stuff in the FOV of the dob. It was using the Nexus with it that made it so much easier and easy to identify things so I could get my bearings.

[Scooot]

Nice report Richard. Did you try any of the large Cygnus nebula?

The American nebula is great comparing wide field and close up, you might even sneak the veil?

Thanks Simon but no I didn't, I'm not sure my skies are good enough. It's a bit annoying that my O-lll is a 2" otherwise I would have tried the veil, I can usually see that with the dob