Posts Made By: Stephen Russell

I also observed from 5 to 530UT. At 5UT using 60x I could see the pair of moon(s) looked different compared to the other two. At 120x I could tell that both moons were just touching. By 515UT I could see two distinct disks, one
larger than the other, just separated at 120x. By 530UT they were cleanly separated at 120x. I went back inside and using The Sky software checked the separations. At 5UT they were 1.8", at 515UT 2.1" and at 530UT they were 2.3" apart. I was using a 92mm refractor and the seeing was better than I'd expected with the jet overhead here in the Central IL.

BTW. at 1035UT they were separated by 1.2", your estimation was right on Kim, nice going. At 7UT they were 2.8" apart, beginning to close back in when you observed Ron.

Stephen

Hi Robert,

If you have the AP wooden tripod, I may have an idea for you. Look at my message posted on 3/7/2003 5:29:54 PM

Stephen Russell

Hi Kim,

I had the 3.6 and 2.8 Taks last summer and tried them in a 4 and 6 inch APO.

As for eye relief, I felt they were easier to use than my 4, 5 or 6 UO's that I have. The planets were not up yet unfortunately, so had to use the moon and double stars etc to judge sharpness, contrast etc. I felt they were extremely
sharp, as good or better than my 5 or 7.5 LE's. They also held up to Barlowing very well, allowing very high magnification possibilities with short focal length refractors. For example, on the Dbl/Dbl, I observed at over 150 per inch in a 4 inch and the image fidelity was exceptional. They also performed very well on clusters, globs and faint fuzzies. I was tickled to death by their performance. Thought I had found the ultimate short focal length eyepieces for fast refractors.

But I ran into a serious problem with the new Taks and have been waiting to see what opinions others will have on these eyepieces. When using these eyepieces on the Moon or Sun, I encountered a severe ghost image making the eyepiece useless IMHO. This ghosting presents itself when the image of the moon/sun does not fill up the entire FOV. When this
happens, I see a ghost image that covers around 75% of the FOV, it was a soft lit out of focus ghost that destroyed the image.

I was totally disappointed by this. I discovered that the only way I could begin to eliminate the ghost image was to fold down the rubber eye cup and press my eyeball against the lens. This was to the point where I was seeing
my reflection of my eyelashes. I then got out my 7.5 LE and discovered that if I moved my eye way off center that a very faint ghost image also appeared. But I had to really work at it for this to happen. I have owned my Tak LE eyepieces for over 5 years and had never noticed
this in the past.

At first I figured that I had a pair of defective eyepieces, but not anymore. At the WSP I found someone who had the new 2.8 and 3.6 Taks. We both observed the same ghost image on the moon in his TEC 8" Mak. He said he
had same ghosting problem in his TEC140. So the focal length of the scope did not make a difference, ghosting was same in both scopes. The owner tried to blacken the edges, shiny spots with no success. He said there appeared to
be a bright spot internal to the lower lens assembly, but he could not disassemble it. And now I have seen another report about ghosting on the Takahishi forums.

Stephen

Hello Robert,

A friend of mine builds a wooden alt/az mount for 5 and 6 inch AP models using AP rings. He has been mounting them on the AP wooden tripod.

Stephen E. Russell

I also have one on order. Plan to compare to my 17N4 and a friend 24Pan. I've also only had a couple of times to compare a 31N5 to my 35Pan. The ergonomics of the eyepiece is turning out to be the most important factor for me.

Stephen

Hello George,

I been using a Black Bogen Manfrotto 3281 Tripod Bag.
Length: 45". Width: 5.5". Height: 5.5

It has plenty of room for the tripod. I just turn the pointed feet inwards when packing it into the case. Since the case is a little longer than the fully retracted tripod, I leave the legs extented to make a snug fit. Price is about the same as Tenba.

Stephen