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FS-128 - brief first light, plus second and third!


Stu

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The forecast was for clear skies, but Sat24 showed plenty of cloud around. Despite that, there were enough clear patches to encourage me to pop the big Tak out for a first light. It wasn’t properly dark obviously.

I had the scope on an AZ75 and Uni-28 tripod, with the Tak cradle attached directly to the mount head. This all worked well, with smooth movement on both axes and vibrations damping down quickly in around a second.

The scope only has 1.25” focuser fittings currently, so I fitted a 1.25” nose piece to my Baader BBHS T2 mirror diagonal and a 2” Clicklock adapter so I could at least use 2” eyepieces such as my Leica zoom. I ended up using a 24mm Panoptic, the Zoom, Vixen HR 3.4mm and a 2 to 4mm Nag zoom giving me from x24mm/1.5 degrees fov to x305 with the Vixen and a crazy x520 with the nag.

Aligning the 50mm finder was a little fiddly but once set it was very rigidly held. It’s a nice sharp unit with fine cross hairs, I just need some batteries for the illuminator now. Although straight through is a pain in the neck, literally, I do find it quite convenient keeping both eyes open and then panning to target; when the object lines up in the finder and naked eye views, you are bang on target.

Anyway, what did I look at and what did I think? The skies weren’t great so this was only just a quick look, but essentially I’m delighted with the views. I did a star test, and the scope is as good or better than anything else I’ve owned. Perfect and equal diffraction patterns either side of focus, and collimation is bang on.

I was impressed by the tightness of the stars at lower powers and the beautiful airy disks at high power. It was akin to the views through a 60mm scope which shows large airy disks at say x100 or x150, whereas these showed the same but at much higher powers due to the smaller airy disk size related to the larger aperture. Hope that makes sense!

I had a look at Venus at a range of powers, and in the 3.4mm it looked clean and sharp at x305. I’ve never been able to convince myself that I can see any surface markings on Venus, I suspect my eyes aren’t sensitive enough in the right wavelengths for that, but could begin to see a little something this time, towards the terminator. Will try again with better conditions.

Izar was the first star to show in a gap so I went for that. Beautiful view, as good as I’ve seen it. Clear separation when viewed at mid power, then two lovely airy disks at high power, quite clean but with some disturbance in the diffraction rings due to the seeing. The colour difference on these two is always lovely to see.

I looked at a few more doubles; Castor, Algieba and the Double Double, all wonderful 👍

I found M81 and 82, clearly different shapes but nothing particularly dramatic I must confess; need darker skies/better dark adaptation for that.

Next up was M57. Low down and over the houses I wasn’t expecting much, but the contrast was impressive and at higher powers it showed it lovely oval smoke ring shape clearly.

I’ve saved the best til last, M13. I wasn’t expecting much on this one due to the brightness of the sky, low position over a house and my lack of dark adaptation, but it really was impressive. A big sparkling ball of stars, resolving deep into the core particularly with averted vision but impressive even with direct vision, this reminded me more of the view through an 8” scope than a 5”. I guess the contrast and tightness of stars contributes towards the resolution. I even got hints of the Propeller which again I wasn’t expecting given the conditions.

So, overall a great first light. Very impressed with the optical quality, contrast and lack of scatter, plus the ability to throw power at it.

I’m wondering if I dare point it at the Sun? I imagine the views would be spectacular.

A couple of pictures, also posted elsewhere, with apologies to any lawn aficionados of a sensitive nature 🤣. I have just picked up my lawnmower after five weeks away being serviced and waiting for parts. I may be some time…..

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Great to hear your first light report. Seems those Tak guys knew what they were doing 😊

Ive not used that clamshell, but I do like the clamshells on my Tak refractors as it’s easy to (re)balance the scope by slightly losening the lock screw and sliding the OTA.

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There's something about these Taks. That's a lovely looking scope you bagged there Stu, and 5" is a sweet aperture

I hope i'm not coming down with Takitis 

Edited by 900SL
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Fabulous! No more glowing reports though please @Stu. Jealousy is such an undignified emotion in me 🙂

Joking! I've just broken my wrist so I'll Tak huge vicarious pleasure from reading observing reports, especially with such a lovely scope! Congratulations!

Malcolm 

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1 hour ago, MalcolmM said:

Fabulous! No more glowing reports though please @Stu. Jealousy is such an undignified emotion in me 🙂

Joking! I've just broken my wrist so I'll Tak huge vicarious pleasure from reading observing reports, especially with such a lovely scope! Congratulations!

Malcolm 

Crikey. Sorry to hear that Malcolm. No lifting any Nagler 31s for you for a while….

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1 hour ago, MalcolmM said:

Fabulous! No more glowing reports though please @Stu. Jealousy is such an undignified emotion in me 🙂

Joking! I've just broken my wrist so I'll Tak huge vicarious pleasure from reading observing reports, especially with such a lovely scope! Congratulations!

Malcolm 

Malcolm, the things people will do to stop them buying things 😉 🤣
On a serious note, sorry to read this and I wish you a quick and full recovery.

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Thanks @JeremyS and @Alan White. It's not too bad a break and rather than big Naglers, I got a tiny Tak Abbe 4mm today 🙂. Amazing the difference 1mm makes! That's what I keep telling my partner 🙂 now I've got the proof 🙂

16839081874792920664522569775531.thumb.jpg.a222d0023244d62e0d3d3805512ce192.jpg

And thanks to an extremely light G&G setup I can still observe one handed, so all's good!

Malcolm 

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16 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I’ll try that argument on Mrs Stu but from a distance… 🤣

More seriously, the bottom end is more out of view from the house as it slopes downhill. There are quite a few flowers in it now so I may well ‘forget’ to mow that bit for a few more weeks. The garden has a much more natural (read untended!) look to it now since we moved in, with self sown bluebells and foxgloves spreading around quite widely. I like that!

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I turn my back for five minutes and everyone buys an FS128 while I'm not looking! When did this happen? 🤣🤪

Seriously though nice work - looking forward to your continuing adventures with both the Tak and the lawn! 

Oh and @MalcolmM sorry to hear about your break - fingers crossed for a speedy recovery 🤞

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7 hours ago, MalcolmM said:

Thanks @JeremyS and @Alan White. It's not too bad a break and rather than big Naglers, I got a tiny Tak Abbe 4mm today 🙂. Amazing the difference 1mm makes! That's what I keep telling my partner 🙂 now I've got the proof 🙂

16839081874792920664522569775531.thumb.jpg.a222d0023244d62e0d3d3805512ce192.jpg

And thanks to an extremely light G&G setup I can still observe one handed, so all's good!

Malcolm 

Sorry to hear about your wrist, and is there an eyepiece between the two caps on the right? 

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@StuCongrats!!

The Tak lightning strikes again!

This telescope is rumoured to be among the best 130mm class telescopes in existence.... super cooling and with great presentation on the planets. What a sharp telescope.

Now I want one.

Gerry

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, jetstream said:

@StuCongrats!!

The Tak lightning strikes again!

This telescope is rumoured to be among the best 130mm class telescopes in existence.... super cooling and with great presentation on the planets. What a sharp telescope.

Now I want one.

Gerry

 

 

 

 

Of course you do, you want them all! Gerry, with your skies I don’t blame you!

Edited by Sunshine
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35 minutes ago, Space Hopper said:

Good read, and the 128 looks really nice on your mount / tripod.

I'm surprised it doesn't need a counterweight ?

No counterweight needed at all. The tripod is quite stable enough, particularly when dug in with the spikes, and the mount is as smooth as silk, the weight is no problem.

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Thanks all.

I had another session with the frac last night. Having been positive about the finder…. I’m going to have to sort out a RACI and RDF as I was fumbling about last night trying to find things.

One interesting thing is that I was able to use the 31mm Nag, despite only having a 1.25” focuser fitting on the scope, and although it was a bit more sensitive to eye position, it actually worked fine without much noticeable vignetting. It gives just under 2.5 degrees in this scope which is great.

Target wise, I was fairly limited due to my finding issues. I attempted the same quasar that @John suggested, but the sky was pretty milky and I just wasn’t getting deep enough to give it a proper go.

So, successes? Mainly Zeta Herc and Al Fawaris ie Delta Cygni.

Zeta Herc was my nemesis for years but now seems relatively easy, perhaps just familiarity with what to look for. Anyway, it was very clear last night, sitting on the first diffraction ring. Both stars appeared similar colour to me although I think the primary is more yellow than the secondary. Generally the seeing was quite good but every now and then it had a wobbly patch and I lost the secondary.

Delta Cygni was beautiful, probably my best view yet. The pair were low down over the neighbouring houses so it was quite challenging but the secondary appeared as a beautiful pin point of light  leading the primary.

Other than those, I just had a cruise around easy to find targets. Bear in mind my grass is about a foot long at the moment where I was observing it got pretty damp and claggy so I called it a night.

I want to give the scope a try on the AZ100 for the extra stability and, dare I mention, slo motion controls. Setting up the Nexus unit on either mount would certainly help my finding problems. I will also try the GP-DX when the Moon come back for the more simple tracking. Should be good on the Planet tripod.

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With sincere apologies to all Tak finder fans out there, I’ve replaced the Tak with a Skywatcher RACI for the moment which should help with my finding issues. I’ll probably also add a Rigel Quickfinder to get me in roughly the right place to start with.

When they come back into stock, I’ll likely try one of these to see how well it works so I at least retain the original finder.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html

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