First light with the Takahashi FOA60(Q)

[JeremyS]

21 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Oh wow, so perhaps there is something in it then 🤔

I bet your FC-60Q gives some stunning views as well though 👍

Prior to getting the FOA-60(Q), I was tempted by that very scope or indeed to add the extender to the FC-76DCU, but I think that the balance I have now works... one tiny super wide “binocular” view (FS-60CB), a fantastic “grab and go” all rounder (FC-76DCU), the “serious” scope for longer sessions on the AZ100 (FC-100DC) and this exquisite little FOA-60(Q) for doubles, lunar and planets in a super compact form.

Along with the 10” dob (for DSO and lunar too), this is more than enough for my remaining lifetime of observing 😃

I am resisting all temptation for anything bigger, even the mighty TSA120... for now 🤣

The great thing about the TSA is that’s it’s relatively light and compact. It’s actually not that different from my FS102

[Chris]

Lovely report, they just eat up the mag so well don't they. I remember that from the FS60CB I once owned. Interesting about the floaters, maybe they just weren't illuminated at 0.2 exit pupil. You broke though the exit pupil barrier! 

[HollyHound]

39 minutes ago, John said:

For what it's worth, my FC100-DL has that gold touch on the plate as well. That one is 6 years old now.

I'm NOT a "takoholic" though, before anyone asks

I’ve just checked all mine, as I was very curious (and not an excuse just to handle them all again 🤣)... the FC-100DC, FC-76DCU and FOA-60 all have the gold plate, but the FS-60CB has silver.

Does it signify anything, except perhaps it’s the cheapest (relatively)... no idea, but intriguing 🤔

 

[HollyHound]

10 minutes ago, Chris said:

Interesting about the floaters, maybe they just weren't illuminated at 0.2 exit pupil.

This is what I think is happening 👍

11 minutes ago, Chris said:

You broke though the exit pupil barrier!

Or you enter the “Takahashi Zone” where the laws of physics cease to exist 🤣

[Chris]

13 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Or you enter the “Takahashi Zone” where the laws of physics cease to exist 🤣

Takahashi's are to telescopes, are what the wavefunction is to quantum mechanics 🤣

Schrodinger's eye floater lol 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Chris

[HollyHound]

15 hours ago, JeremyS said:

I was just reading on CN about somebody using 0.18 mm exit pupil regularly  with an FOA 60 Q. Somebody pointed out that it’s at these v small exit pupils that the FOA Qs really pull ahead of the FC 60 Q.

Just been re-reading some of the excellent reviews on ScopeViews... hopefully ok to link here and provide a short quoted extract 🤞

http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/TakFOA-60Q.htm

“I don’t generally like excessive magnification, but the ‘Q’ could clearly take more. So, I upped to a 3.5mm Nagler, giving a ridiculous (for a 60mm) 257x. Yet the view remained incredibly sharp, with no break up or softening, the kind of ‘Lunar Module porthole’ view I have only experienced in much larger scopes...Takahashi promised the ability to take exceptionally high magnification; they delivered.”

So plainly it indeed seem comfortable at much higher magnifications than would ordinarily be considered... at least for the moon anyway 👍

Edited May 22, 2021 by HollyHound

[John]

11 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Just been re-reading some of the excellent reviews on ScopeViews... hopefully ok to link here and provide a short quoted extract 🤞

http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/TakFOA-60Q.htm

“I don’t generally like excessive magnification, but the ‘Q’ could clearly take more. So, I upped to a 3.5mm Nagler, giving a ridiculous (for a 60mm) 257x. Yet the view remained incredibly sharp, with no break up or softening, the kind of ‘Lunar Module porthole’ view I have only experienced in much larger scopes...Takahashi promised the ability to take exceptionally high magnification; they delivered.”

So plainly it indeed seem comfortable at much higher magnifications than would ordinarily be considered... at least for the moon anyway 👍

It's amazing how small apertures of decent optical quality can support such high magnifications and still deliver sharp images. When I stopped down my ED120 refractor down to 52mm F/17.3 I found that I could still use 200x-300x and get sharp and well resolved double star images although the image had dimmed with the small aperture:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/377032-trying-to-split-izar-with-66mm/?do=findComment&comment=4085866

 

 

 

[HollyHound]

34 minutes ago, John said:

It's amazing how small apertures of decent optical quality can support such high magnifications and still deliver sharp images. When I stopped down my ED120 refractor down to 52mm F/17.3 I found that I could still use 200x-300x and get sharp and well resolved double star images although the image had dimmed with the small aperture:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/377032-trying-to-split-izar-with-66mm/?do=findComment&comment=4085866

Interesting experiment in that thread, thank you. Some good targets for me to try in your post too 👍

I think that my FOA-60Q is likely to be the tool of choice for double stars, as from everything I’ve read now, it is very possible to do some tricky splits with these apertures, especially if they have very good optics. In particular, the best do seem to put more energy into the airy disc and have fainter rings, so should be easier to split 🤞

I might also try the FC-100 and FOA-60 side by side one night and see how they fare 🤔

[John]

When I've done comparisons of refractors of comparable optical quality on challenging double stars, perhaps unsurprisingly, the results followed the optical theory. For example, with a 100mm the close pair of Tegmine (Zeta Cancri) with a separation of 1.1 arc seconds is almost, but not quite split. With 120mm, the split is tight but clear, as the optical theory predicts it should be.

With a "perfect" optic (ie: strehl 1.0) I understand that 84% of the light goes into the airy disk and the remaining 16% to the diffraction rings.

It is interesting to see these theories in practice

 

 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, HollyHound said:

Interesting experiment in that thread, thank you. Some good targets for me to try in your post too 👍

I think that my FOA-60Q is likely to be the tool of choice for double stars, as from everything I’ve read now, it is very possible to do some tricky splits with these apertures, especially if they have very good optics. In particular, the best do seem to put more energy into the airy disc and have fainter rings, so should be easier to split 🤞

I might also try the FC-100 and FOA-60 side by side one night and see how they fare 🤔

As @John says, the results follow theory generally. Smaller scopes give larger airy disks, so theory says you can split tighter doubles with a larger scope.

In reality, seeing conditions, cooling and collimation play a role in the results, and I’ve often found double stars easier and more pleasing to split in refractors versus larger newts or SCTs.

The larger airy disks of smaller scopes do result very beautiful images because it makes them easier to see. In larger scopes, the disk is often hidden in a mess of diffraction spikes and seeing effects, and so is harder to see and the results are less aesthetically pleasing, even though tighter splits are possible given the right conditions.

I love viewing Izar in my little 63mm Telementor and the TAL Alkor, as I’ve said before, the secondarylooks like a beautiful gemstone embedded in the diffraction ring from the primary. Lovely stuff.

[HollyHound]

Thanks to both @Johnand @Stu, plus that Damian Peach article, it’s all a lot more clear now 👍

I can see that having the range of apertures could be beneficial depending on the target being observed, and certainly (discounting size practicality factors alone) there are good reasons to have a small(er) aperture scope with excellent optical quality in the arsenal too 🤔

I do find the airy discs in these refractors to be excellent quality, compared to the SCT/Mak/Dob 😃

Edited May 22, 2021 by HollyHound

[John]

The one scope type, other than a refractor, that I have owned that has truly given "refractor like" star images is the maksutov-newtonian. In my case it was a 150mm F/5.9 Intes (Moscow) mak-newtonian. They have tiny secondary obstructions and no secondary vanes. Excellent optical figure as well. Cool down is quite a bit longer than a refractor though plus they are heavier.

Edited May 22, 2021 by John

[JeremyS]

9 hours ago, HollyHound said:

Just been re-reading some of the excellent reviews on ScopeViews... hopefully ok to link here and provide a short quoted extract 🤞

http://www.scopeviews.co.uk/TakFOA-60Q.htm

“I don’t generally like excessive magnification, but the ‘Q’ could clearly take more. So, I upped to a 3.5mm Nagler, giving a ridiculous (for a 60mm) 257x. Yet the view remained incredibly sharp, with no break up or softening, the kind of ‘Lunar Module porthole’ view I have only experienced in much larger scopes...Takahashi promised the ability to take exceptionally high magnification; they delivered.”

So plainly it indeed seem comfortable at much higher magnifications than would ordinarily be considered... at least for the moon anyway 👍

I seem to have that FOA 60 review page permanently open on my iPad 👍🏻

[faulksy]

On 18/05/2021 at 22:11, Stu said:

Any excuse! 🤣

Probably would, but hopefully I’ll be close to some decent skies so the truss dob might actually get me observing some DSO finally! It’s been ages since I did.

Anyway, enough of me, back to ‘the Tak that could’ 😀👍

get your truss out stu and you will be able to see real things not just the moon 🤣 only messing hollyhound. lovely scope, dont tell anyone i said that though

[HollyHound]

2 hours ago, JeremyS said:

I seem to have that FOA 60 review page permanently open on my iPad 👍🏻

I first came across that site when I was researching binoculars (he has as many reviews of those as scopes) almost two years ago, well before I joined SGL. I happened to spot the section on scopes… and the rest is history 🤣

At the time, I did wonder what all these “Takahashi” scopes were and why there so many reviews of them, especially the “little” ones… I now understand fully the attraction 👍

[HollyHound]

51 minutes ago, faulksy said:

get your truss out stu and you will be able to see real things not just the moon 🤣 only messing hollyhound. lovely scope, dont tell anyone i said that though

Your secret is safe amongst us Takophiles 🤣

Although I adore the moon, my biggest wow moment so far was seeing the full majesty of M42 and (finally) the E and F stars in the Trapezium through my Bresser 10” dob 😀

[faulksy]

38 minutes ago, HollyHound said:

Your secret is safe amongst us Takophiles 🤣

Although I adore the moon, my biggest wow moment so far was seeing the full majesty of M42 and (finally) the E and F stars in the Trapezium through my Bresser 10” dob 😀

lovely tiny little scope garry 😃 as you just said, cant beat a dob

[Stu]

8 hours ago, faulksy said:

as you just said, cant beat a dob

Absolutely, I love taking my dob as carry on baggage.... 🤪🤣

[Astrotakis]

I am thinking of getting a FOA-60Q soon  as well - mostly for double stars work and travel planetary and wide field work (I travel a lot to Greece and I have easy access to a class 3 site and Exmoor here in UK)

I have 3 Taks, including a FS-60CB/Q  but I think the FOA-60Q will be a nice addition. It will be interesting to try some astrophotography with it as well. It’s slow but the spots diagrams are tempting. I have seen a lovely photograph of Cygnus nebulae taken with it on a Japanese blog.

Photo I took of the dark site in Greece: https://astrotakis.com/starscape/greece/a-starry-night-at-iria-2019

[Astrotakis]

My widest eyepieces at the moment are a Pentax XW 40mm and a Panoptic 24mm. Do you think the Pentax XW 40 will be a good match for the FOA60Q? I believe it accepts 2 inch eyepieces by default? I have a Teegul Sky Patrol that I can use but I can always get a different alt-z mount if the scope with the Q module is too much for it.

 

It will be lovely to use it in 2 inches wide field mode in that dark place in Greece where Scorpius is higher in altitude than UK and explore all these southern night sky summer treasures!

[JeremyS]

14 minutes ago, Astrotakis said:

I am thinking of getting a FOA-60Q soon  as well - mostly for double stars work and travel planetary and wide field work (I travel a lot to Greece and I have easy access to a class 3 site and Exmoor here in UK)

I have 3 Taks, including a FS-60CB/Q  but I think the FOA-60Q will be a nice addition. It will be interesting to try some astrophotography with it as well. It’s slow but the spots diagrams are tempting. I have seen a lovely photograph of Cygnus nebulae taken with it on a Japanese blog.

Photo I took of the dark site in Greece: https://astrotakis.com/starscape/greece/a-starry-night-at-iria-2019

I like your thinking 👍🏻

[HollyHound]

5 hours ago, Astrotakis said:

My widest eyepieces at the moment are a Pentax XW 40mm and a Panoptic 24mm. Do you think the Pentax XW 40 will be a good match for the FOA60Q? I believe it accepts 2 inch eyepieces by default?

As soon as we get some clear sky, I will try my Pentax XW30 (which is pretty close to your XW40) and let you know 🤞

It certainly does accept 2” eyepieces and has a long focus travel range, so will accommodate pretty much anything.

I can confirm the Panoptic 24 works superbly and sits in my lightweight (grab and go) set 👍

[Astrotakis]

Thanks @HollyHound! I have already the 2 inches Takahashi diagonal that I can use (Takahashi 90° Mirror Diagonal 10th Wave 2").

I think it will be interesting to find out what this little gem can do with that eyepiece and OIII and H-beta 2 inches filters under true dark skies - to explore super large nebulae (Veil Complex, Sadr’s neighbourhood, North America, California, Horsehead, Rosette, areas of the Barnard loop etc.)!

Andromeda Galaxy should also be glorious under Bortle 2/3 skies.

[Hans Joakim]

In addition to the excellent optics, the portability of the 60 mm series of scopes is very attractive to me. One of my use cases would be short hikes with the scope in a padded case, preferrably a shoulder bag or a back pack. For those of you with the FOA-60Q: Do you have any recommendations for a suitable case? I assume it would be necessary and most convenient to disassemble the extender from the scope for compact transportation.

[JeremyS]

On 13/12/2022 at 09:29, Hans Joakim said:

In addition to the excellent optics, the portability of the 60 mm series of scopes is very attractive to me. One of my use cases would be short hikes with the scope in a padded case, preferrably a shoulder bag or a back pack. For those of you with the FOA-60Q: Do you have any recommendations for a suitable case? I assume it would be necessary and most convenient to disassemble the extender from the scope for compact transportation.

I use an Oklop bag for my Tak FOA 60Q. But I wouldn’t take it hiking in it. Too long.

For my FC76DCU is use a backpack