Takahashi have announced a new 6cm f/8.8 scope!

[DirkSteele 2,103]

The announcement of a new scope is always rather exciting (at least for me, bit of an equipment geek). The new FOA-60 was announced on the Tak Japanese website today. Seems to employ a Fluorite doublet but with a TOA type air spacing (I.e big) to really control sphero-chromatism. Putting the text through google translate also reveals there is a 1.7x module that turns into an f/15 with the best correction of any Tak ever. System design strehl with the extender is above 0.99 for all visible wavelengths. Of course they need to fabricate it well but that is an exciting prospect. Also talks of magnifications over 300x (we will ignore the laser like exit pupil). Though I have taken my FS-60Q to 300x as well... still sharp if rather dark.

 

Looks like it has a sliding dew shield and is about 22 inches long. Weighs 1.8kg.

Also makes reference to eclipses so seems they might be targeting the summer 2017 event. 

Here is the link: http://www.takahashijapan.com/ct-news/news_topics/newst_170301_foa-60.html

 

I want! ?

[Cjg 686]

Saw that, a lot of chatter on CloudyNights about it.  Very shrewd of Tak with their timing. Wonder if it will be a limited run of 100 or a normal stock item? 

[John 36,139]

Sounds interesting andif they can get it out quickly, the timing is very cunning.

At 300x wouldn't this new scope also be rather dark, given that it's the same aperture as your FS-60Q Matthew ?

 

[DirkSteele 2,103]

6 hours ago, John said:

 

At 300x wouldn't this new scope also be rather dark, given that it's the same aperture as your FS-60Q Matthew ?

 

Yep. I would argue that is probably more about bragging rights than practicality. I took my 60Q to 300x once just out of curiosity on a first quarter moon. It was still an impressive image but it was getting a bit dark. On anything else in the night sky, I  imagine it would be too dark to be useful.

 

[DirkSteele 2,103]

7 hours ago, Cjg said:

Saw that, a lot of chatter on CloudyNights about it.  Very shrewd of Tak with their timing. Wonder if it will be a limited run of 100 or a normal stock item? 

Good question. Hopefully this becomes a stock item. Wonder about the implication for the FS-60. 

[Chris 6,622]

As lovely as it looks it doesn't strike me as a particularly practical scope? I get the FS 60 beings it's ultra compact, very wide field, and can be used for imaging...I quite often fancy one of those but I'm not sold on this one yet. Just seems like an exercise for achieving high Strehl with the f/15 module.

[ollypenrice 29,531]

To my mind the old FS60 would have justified its price had it been good at everything one might reasonably have asked of a scope this size - but it wasn't. It really wasn't much of a DS imaging scope with serious blue bloat affecting both the examples whose output I've worked on. Very nice visually, though, both by day and by night.

So if they've fixed the blue correction for imagers on the new one it may well find a following.

Olly

[Chris 6,622]

7 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

So if they've fixed the blue correction for imagers on the new one it may well find a following.

Olly

Won't it be a bit slow @ f/8.8 for DSO imaging? No doubt it will be better corrected though  

[ollypenrice 29,531]

Just now, Chris Lock said:

Won't it be a bit slow @ f/8.8 for DSO imaging? No doubt it will be better corrected though  

Yes, it will. You're right. There is something of the solid gold belly button brush about this scope in my view: it is for the man who has everything!

lly

[Chris 6,622]

I think you've hit the nail on the head Olly, 

p.s. I like the belly button brush analogy lol

[DirkSteele 2,103]

7 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

Won't it be a bit slow @ f/8.8 for DSO imaging? No doubt it will be better corrected though  

F/8.8 would be a bit slow. Does not seem to be a dedicated reducer for yet but perhaps in time one will be launched. Google translate indicates the flattener has a modest 0.93x reduction to focal length so that is not really going to cut it.

5 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Yes, it will. You're right. There is something of the solid gold belly button brush about this scope in my view: it is for the man who has everything!

lly

Haha... Probably why foolish me immediately wants one!

[Chris 6,622]

I do see you as a connoisseur/collector of high end refractors Matthew, so maybe you are indeed this scopes target audience  

[ollypenrice 29,531]

21 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

 

p.s. I like the belly button brush analogy lol

 

It's not original. I remembered it from an article about Alan Whicker which I must have read more than forty years ago. One of his friends was quoted as saying that it was almost impossible to buy him anything because he was the man who had everything. You were down to things like gold plated belly button brushes, etc! 

Dirk Steele, I never said I didn't want one!!!

Olly

PS...

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by ollypenrice

[faulksy 3,889]

what a lovely finder scope that is, an nice and light

[jabeoo1 1,272]

4 minutes ago, faulksy said:

what a lovely finder scope that is, an nice and light

I agree Mike, there is nothing worse than unwieldy chromatic aberration when moving onto a target. 

[Chris 6,622]

32 minutes ago, faulksy said:

what a lovely finder scope that is, an nice and light

We joke I know but I'm pretty certain people actually do use Tak FS60's as finders!...I know if I could afford to, I would! 

[mikeDnight 9,899]

16 hours ago, DirkSteele said:

Yep. I would argue that is probably more about bragging rights than practicality. I took my 60Q to 300x once just out of curiosity on a first quarter moon. It was still an impressive image but it was getting a bit dark. On anything else in the night sky, I  imagine it would be too dark to be useful.

 

Perhaps the magnification claim is more of a measure of confidence in optical quality. It's nice to know that if the seeing conditions permit it, you can power up any Tak scope until you run out of exit pupil. Tak are obviously supremely confident in their new babies potential. 

Mike

[mapstar 6,621]

46 minutes ago, faulksy said:

what a lovely finder scope that is, an nice and light

It would be £850 well spent I think Mike 

[Scooot 4,157]

59 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

We joke I know but I'm pretty certain people actually do use Tak FS60's as finders!...I know if I could afford to, I would! 

I do sometimes  

[Alien 13 7,598]

I cant see the point of this scope the FL is far too long for realy wide field views so it probably is best used as a finder.

Alan

[Scooot 4,157]

I would think it would be quite nice on the moon. When I use my extender to turn the fs60 into f10 it's great on the moon so I'd think at f8.8 or f15 with the extender it would also be very nice. And double stars maybe? 

[Rainmaker 493]

On 3/3/2017 at 10:43, Alien 13 said:

I cant see the point of this scope the FL is far too long for realy wide field views so it probably is best used as a finder.

Alan

I just ordered one to bolt to my TOA as a nice little finderscope.....  and I don't even have a gold belly button brush.....