Takahashi Starbase 80

[jock1958]

Just had an email from Astronomics announcing the release of the entry level Takahashi Starbase 80, f/10 with Alt / Az Mount and slo mo controls all for $610.

Could it be the dream starter package for people entering this hobby? 

Anyone had any feedback on this scope and how much do think it will retail in the UK for to our friends @FLO ?

Edited September 19, 2019 by jock1958

[John]

This scope has been discussed at some length on another forum:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/612877-information-on-starbase-80-achromatic-takahashish/

and

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/675967-takahashi-starbase-80-anyone-have-one/#entry9632264

It seems that it's not made by Takahashi but it is made in Japan.

The Japanese website linked to in the 2nd of above threads states "....not a Takahashi product"

 

 

 

[jock1958]

2 minutes ago, John said:

This scope has been discussed at some length on another forum:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/612877-information-on-starbase-80-achromatic-takahashish/

and

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/675967-takahashi-starbase-80-anyone-have-one/#entry9632264

It seems that it's not made by Takahashi but it is made in Japan.

The Japanese website linked to in the 2nd of above threads states "....not a Takahashi product"

 

 

 

Thanks John will have a read of that

[John]

It reminds me of the 1980's Vixen Custom 80M F/10 which was sold on the Vixen Custom D alt-az mount:

 

 

[jock1958]

32 minutes ago, John said:

It reminds me of the 1980's Vixen Custom 80M F/10 which was sold on the Vixen Custom D alt-az mount:

 

 

That set up look very similar John, I wonder if it's a re-engineered version of that product?

As you said it's made in Japan by a firm called Hanamaki backed by Takahashi so quality should be good. 

Will have to wait for further reports and cost when and if it comes to the UK.

Edited September 19, 2019 by jock1958

[Scott42]

Am I the only one wondering about this alt-az mount?  It looks good, I'd love to see Tak offer it by itself or with the tripod. 

It's got slow motion controls and a nice handle, if it works with this scope its should work with shorter-focus 100mm scopes.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Scott42

[mikeDnight]

That crossed my mind too Scott. The old Vixen custom D would handle a 100mm F7.4. I suppose that if the mount is Tak quality, it may be worth buying the full outfit just for the mount?

[johninderby]

It shouldn’t be forgotten if it was full Tak quality it would have the Takahashi name on it. You won’t find the Tak name anywhere on this scope. Starbase is a lower priced beginners brand, Good quality yes but made by a company that makes scopes for other brands as well as Tak.

 

 

 

 

 

[FLO]

We recently saw one of these, it's a nice product but we were concerned about the price point - these would need to retail around the £700 mark in the UK.

If there is sufficient interest, we could look into it further?

[John]

I think £700 is a high price for an alt-az mounted 80mm achromat as well.

If it offers performance in the Vixen 80MF league then there might be some interest and / or if the link with Takahashi was stronger. But as it is I feel that it is sort of "betwixt and between" as it were

[johninderby]

I do like it but feel that £700.00 is just a bit too high in the UK. £599.00 maybe but £700  no. 🙁

Maybe others will feel differently.

Edited October 1, 2019 by johninderby

[Ben the Ignorant]

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

I do like it but feel that £700.00 is just a bit too high in the UK. £599.00 maybe but £700  no. 🙁

Maybe others will feel differently.

Nope. 600£ is 675€ for an alt-az long-tube smallish achromatic when plenty of excellent f/7 semi-apos can be bought for the same amount of money. Take TS' 500€ tube, add a 290€ alt-az, that's 690€. Plus, the semi-apo has a 2" focuser for wider fields, and an f/7 ratio for wider wider fields. Unless one is dead-focused on the brandname or its endorsement and ignores practical things, the long narrow-field achromat is not interesting. There is always an affordable semi-apo that costs nearly the same as a nostalgic's achromat. Not even sure this mount allows pointing at 90° elevation from what I see in the picture, by the way.

I just bought a Ronchi grating and tested my TS 80mm triplet (646€ in 2012) and my Astro-Professional 80mm semi-apo doublet (180€ on a liquidation sale). Both produce lines that are just as straight, so overall aberrations are controlled the same way. But the "cheap" semi-apo's lines have a somewhat sharper edge.

Truer , more saturated colors in the triplet but a little bit more contrast and sharpness in the doublet, at the expense of a minuscule violet fringing, of course. A violet-absorbing diagonal reduces that so it can be ignored. Residual aberrations in the lenses compound each other so an air-spaced triplet will have more than an air-spaced doublet assuming the same polishing quality. Given how chinese semi-apos can excel I see no reasons except irrational reasons to pay high prices for achromats.

[joe aguiar]

i have seen this scope couple months ago im sure was on the takahasi website, it looks like a well corrected acromat which is fine i guess

joejaguar

[Dave1]

Hi Everyone,

Recently I discovered the Takahashi Starbase 80. Over on cloudy nights I did a lot of digging about. The owners are generally very happy with the performance of the Starbase 80 telescope. They are also seasoned observers. Its been discovered that the factory making the optics for the Starbase 80 is Kubota Optical in Hanamaki City. Kubota Optical has been operating for a long time. This is why Takahashi America mention Hanamaki in there sells pitch. Kubota Optical make both the Takahashi Starbase 80mm and Scopetech ( https://scopetown.co.jp/ ) line of telescopes. I did some research on Scopetech and discovered they make a 80mm F15 which is there flagship telescope. They also pride themselves in making high quality telescope in the time honoured Japanese tradition. In France they have tested the 80mm F10, 80mm F12.5, and 80mm F15. The 80mm F15 came out as 0.972 Strehl in D Ray which is most important for Planetary. The Tester was Joerg of Wellenform, who does all the testing for APM telescopes. The French have tested the light transmittance of the lens coatings, the result they got back was 99.5% So not quite the advertised 99.9% but not very far off. 

Foucault test for Scopetech 80mm F15

Diffraction test for 80mm F15

Letter for 80mm F15

upload image free

Results for 80mm F15

Chromatic residue : 2.71

Ray & Wavelength / Marechal Rms Value & comment

F         486nm             0.043                              0.93 strehl

E         546nm             0.029                              0.967 strehl

D         589nm             0.027                             0.972 strehl

C         656nm             0.020                            >0.98 strehl with PtV lambda/9

So these aren't just good beginners telescopes. These are actually very high quality optics made in the time honoured tradition of Japanese Optics. This is why Takahashi choose Kubota Optical in Hanamaki. The 80mm F10 ( Takahashi Starbase 80) made by Kubota Optical test results are just a bit behind the Scopetech 80mm F15.

I for one will purchase a Scopetech 80mm F15 to compare to my Towa 80mm F15. The loser will be sold. 80mm F15 is my favourite size of instrument. So I am trying to get the best I can.

Best Regards

David

Edited April 15, 2020 by Dave1

[John]

Interesting that there are still good quality long focal length achromat refractors being produced.

These remind me of the Antares "Vixen Spec" achromats which were available a decade or so ago.

Bresser produced a couple of long achromats a couple of years back (90mm and 102mm) but they used a lot of plastic in these so I;m not sure how good they actually turned out to be ?:

[johninderby]

Lot of people nowadays dismiss any achromat as being low quality without realising that a long focal length one made to top standards can be a very fine telescope indeed. I suppose it has lot to do with most manufacturers now only producing achromats as low end and low cost telescopes.

My Carton f/13 100mm is a joy to use and delivers outstanding views and has seen off many an APO on planetary observing. 

[Dave1]

That's just it John, a lot of the Achromat sold today are low quality examples. Which give many a person a bad perspective. If they have tried a high quality example like we both own, they might just might change there minds, taking the mounting requirements of larger Achromats out of the example.

At the end of the day, quality costs, doesn't matter if its a achromat, ED doublet, or triplet. Its the time put into building a fine optic that counts/costs. 

[Dave1]

43 minutes ago, John said:

Interesting that there are still good quality long focal length achromat refractors being produced.

These remind me of the Antares "Vixen Spec" achromats which were available a decade or so ago.

Bresser produced a couple of long achromats a couple of years back (90mm and 102mm) but they used a lot of plastic in these so I;m not sure how good they actually turned out to be ?:

I remember those Antares, not sure where in the world they were made, but I do remember them having stopped down apertures. The 105mm was stopped down to 93-95mm depending on who measured. As far as I'm aware the Takahashi and Scopetech operate at full aperture.  

I actually had a mid 1980's Vixen 80mm F15. I compared the Vixen and Towa 80mm F15 side by side on Jupiter. Same nights, same seeing conditions, same eyepieces, same diagonal. The Towa was the better scope on Jupiter. Which given the Vixen had better baffling, was surprising. The Towa is flocked though. 

David

Edited April 15, 2020 by Dave1

[johninderby]

Antares were a Canadian brand of telescopes built in Canada using different objectives.

Found the following info.

Sky Instruments is a company based in British Columbia, Canada. They have in house manufacturing capacity, but many of their products are "hybrids". For example, the Speers-Waler eyepieces have optics manufactured overseas (usually Japan), but the design of the eyepiece itself is Canadian, the housings are manufactured in Canada, and ths final assembly is done on-site. Sometimes all the components come frou outside sources, but final assembly takes place on site.

Their telescopes are much the same. Parts are purchased from a variety of sources, manufactured to their specs, some parts might be made on site, and final assembly and packaging is done on site. I do not know what percentage of what components make up each individual Antares Telescope, so please do not ask. I simply do not know. The only thing I can state is any refractor marked "Vixen Spec" has an objective lens made in Japan, usually at the same optical lab that makes objectives for Vixen itself.

Edited April 15, 2020 by johninderby

[Dave1]

I was aware of Antares being Canadian, I nearly bought one, some of them were still in stock some places a couple of years ago. The point being that, nobody seemed to know where they were made. What stopped me was the stopped down optics.

EDIT: I posted my initial response before Johninderby edit his post above mine, where he wrote the second paragraph which goes into more details on the origins of Antares. So now we can see it was assembled in Canada from parts from around the world.

 

David

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Dave1

[John]

The company Antares is / was Canadian. Much of their stuff was imported from Japan or other Asian countries. I agree that the stopped down optics, once they became known about, were off putting.

Vixen used to make fine F/13 and F/15 achromat refractors. Much less of those around than the more familiar Vixen F/10 / F/11's

I used to lust after these Vixens (the scopes) which were branded Celestron back in the early 1980's:

 

[Dave1]

 The 80's Vixen 80mm F15 I had was good, not quite as good as my Towa though. The Towa revealed low contrast details better. My Skylight 101.6mm F15 has a Vixen or Vixen specification Japanese optics in it.

David

[mikeDnight]

20 minutes ago, John said:

The company Antares is / was Canadian. Much of their stuff was imported from Japan or other Asian countries. I agree that the stopped down optics, once they became known about, were off putting.

Vixen used to make fine F/13 and F/15 achromat refractors. Much less of those around than the more familiar Vixen F/10 / F/11's

I used to lust after these Vixens (the scopes) which were branded Celestron back in the early 1980's:

 

I was lucky enough to own one of the Vixen F13 achromats back in the mid 80's, and stupidly sell it in 1993. It's fork mount was pretty poor as it struggled to hold the scope steady enough for me. It was a stunning deep sky scope! It's view of M82 is still emblazoned in my mind as being the best I've ever seen it. As a lunar and planetary scope it was superb and let down only by my minimal selection of eyepieces. I couldn't afford much back then, so not much has changed. I bought the scope from Peter Drew who sold it to me for £400, and i found out only a couple of years ago that it previously belonged to a superb lunar and planetary observer, Nigel Longshaw. Talking to Nigel a while ago, he spoke very fondly of it and said it was a scope he deeply regretted letting go. Years later I bought an Antarese 105mm, but it didn't give me the wow factor that the Vixen F13 did.

[John]

This was the longest scope that I've ever owned - Istar 150mm F/12 achromat. A beast to find a stable mount for though

[mikeDnight]

1 hour ago, John said:

This was the longest scope that I've ever owned - Istar 150mm F/12 achromat. A beast to find a stable mount for though

Lovely scopes John, but there's just one thing missing, - the pretty girl.  I really liked those old Celestron advertisements and until now I couldn't remember why!