Tak FC-100 - what will I gain?

[Stu]

38 minutes ago, Pig said:

Maybe we should start watching “ The Sky at Bite” instead ?

That deserves a resounding ‘Badoom Tish!!’  

[Pig]

43 minutes ago, Stu said:

That deserves a resounding ‘Badoom Tish!!’  

I must Apollogise........I can’t help it I’m afraid ?

[garryblueboy]

How about Fright Night ?

[BGazing]

On 17/05/2018 at 11:53, mikeDnight said:

I genuinely doubt there's any placebo effect!

Takahashi are highly regarded because they are one of the very few manufacturers, if not the only manufacturer, that offers truly high end optics off the shelf. No year to a decade waiting list from Tak! Having previously owned two larger Tak fluorite refractors and foolishly selling them, i first roughed it for a year with a TV NP101, highly regarded by many but it didnt come close to a Tak in performance. I then spent six years with 120 ED's, beginning with a Pro and later two Equinox. All three were superb and far superior in performance to the stupidly expensive Televue.

I did yearn for a fluorite refractor again, and after I learned that Tak has once again started production of a 100mm fluorite, I had to have one. To my eye there is a purity in the image produced by a fluorite lens that somehow seems to be lacking in most other refractors. Interestingly the SW 100 and 120 ED doublets give a very clean cool fluorite view, which was probably why I love them so much. To get the Tak I was willing to sell all the astro gear I possessed and immediately stuck everything on AB&S. As you might guess, everything I would have liked to have kept sold first, so gone were my Naglers and Ethos. As it happened, the 120 Equinox, although sold, was still in my possession for a couple of weeks after my FC100DC arrived. This gave me a fine opportunity to put the two scopes to the test in a side by side comparison.

As I've said, the 120 Equinox was an amazing scope, giving piercingly sharp star images, bright views of comets and DSO's, and easily capable of whopping the socks off an 8 or even a 10 inch reflector as far as sharp lunar and planetary views were concerned. So it really does seem counterintuitive to drop in aperture, given the already great performance of the 120ED, but the very first view of Jupiter, which was high in the spring sky three years ago, confirmed I'd made the right decision for me. In the Tak while looking through cloud, Jupiters equatorial belts appeard to stand out almost in 3D as if theyed been braided around the planet. The colours in the Tak were richer and the more intricate detail was more easily discernible than in the 120 Equinox. This same effect was observerd on the following night when the sky was cloud free. Star images in the Tak were perfection, with the out of focus rings on both sides of focus as identical as I've ever seen in any telescope. I was happy to let the beautiful 120 go to its new owner after that without any real regrets. I would have liked to have kept both, but financial constraints, limited space and my owner were all factors that made keeping both impossible.

I genuinely don't feel any snobbery about owning a Tak but I do feel a large measure of contentment. I'm in a nice, warm, comfortable place having only one good scope, and the benefit has been that I do a lot more observing these days than ever before. My scope is only small in aperture but performance wise, its up there with the best. As things stand at present, I can't ever see me parting with it!

 

I had the unique opportunity to view on the same night, with the same eyepieces (but different diagonals, mind you) through my FC 100 and Equinox 120. Both were good but at 4.7mm ES Saturn in Tak was less bright (laws of physics, simply) but Tak was better corrected in red, the color balance appeared slightly off the mark in Equinox. Could be its APM prism diagonal....who knows. While Equinox was brighter, I did not feel that the image at 150x in Tak was inferior in any way.

OPs dilemma is interesting. Downsizing and upgrading in quality to Tak does not make sense if portability is not sought. Aperture will come in handy from the backyard. Unless there are pressing concerns I would not change 120mm SW ED for 100mm Tak. But I would for Tak equivalent aperture in a heartbeat, wallet permitting.

[Stu]

39 minutes ago, BGazing said:

I had the unique opportunity to view on the same night, with the same eyepieces (but different diagonals, mind you) through my FC 100 and Equinox 120. Both were good but at 4.7mm ES Saturn in Tak was less bright (laws of physics, simply) but Tak was better corrected in red, the color balance appeared slightly off the mark in Equinox. Could be its APM prism diagonal....who knows. While Equinox was brighter, I did not feel that the image at 150x in Tak was inferior in any way.

OPs dilemma is interesting. Downsizing and upgrading in quality to Tak does not make sense if portability is not sought. Aperture will come in handy from the backyard. Unless there are pressing concerns I would not change 120mm SW ED for 100mm Tak. But I would for Tak equivalent aperture in a heartbeat, wallet permitting.

Great post, sums it up nicely.

[25585]

Wallet permitting :)