Posts Made By: Lawrence Carlino

Kudos to Intes-Micro on the superb optical quality of the MN-76 Mak-Newt. The performance on the planets is breathtaking - shows more EZ and SEB detail on Jupiter than my 6" APO. Contrast and color saturation are remarkable. Surprisingly nice on the deep skies as well. Only one minor complaint: focuser knobs are too small. Joe, at Earth and Sky Adventure Products personally tested the scope prior to shipment. Excellent service at a very good price.

Has any one else experienced a long delay in the repair of a Tak Sky 90 II for a pinched optics problem? My Sky 90 suffered from pinched optics in cold weather and was sent back to TNR for repair in early March. As they were unable to rectify the situation, the scope was sent to the Tak factory in Japan. Three months later, I'm still without the scope! Tak certainly produces a great scope (I have three of them), but their level of customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

My Tak Sky 90 was sent back to Texas Nautical Repair on Mar 4 to fix a cold- weather pinched optics problem. It had to be sent back to Japan for a solution. I'm still without it after almost 4 months. TNR will not respond to ANY of my e-mail inquiries or phone calls. The one time I did manage to make contact by phone, I was told that I'd have the scope back by the end of May. What gives here? I'd like the common courtesy of a response! Has anyone experienced similar problems with TNR or Tak ? Color me one VERY unhappy customer.

I received my Orion 150mm Mak-Cass on Friday and have had 2 mediocre nights to get a first impression. The scope is nicely built: good fit and finish, but quite hefty at a bit over 12 pounds. Central obstruction is 31 percent, a bit smaller than that of the average compound scope. The focuser is smooth with a nice feel, though there is a 20 arc-sec image shift in one spot. The optics are very good, perhaps excellent. Stars are tight pinpoints with a clean airy disk and smooth first diffraction ring at high power. Delta Cygni resolved at 130x despite poor seeing. Epsilon Lyrae "bullet holed" at 130x. Jupiter displayed the GRS , considerable belt detail, and fine color saturation at 130x. THe moon, although low in the sky, was very sharp with black shadow and good contrast and depth. Can't use the scope as an RFT, however. I went as low as 60x with a 30mm Celestron Ultima ep - very nice on the deep sky objects, but limited f.o.v. Initial impressions suggest that performance is similar to older Orion (Intes) Mak. I'll be writing a full review for ASTROMART after more observing and comparisons with other scopes.

Clear skies!
Larry Carlino

For those interested in reasonably priced ED refractors, I've had several clear nights for evaluation of my new Stellarvue SV102ED. The scope arrived in its (optional) airline-portable hard case in perfect condition and collimation. It is nicely built, displaying excellent fit and finish and obvious attention to detail and quality control. The retracting dew shield moves with precision, and the standard dual-speed focuser ( though not quite as nice as the optional FeatherTouch) is very smooth and accurate : no image shift whatsoever. Optically, the scope star tests very well: no spherical aberration or astigmatism. Fresnel rings are sharp and cleanly defined with a bit of out-of-focus color. Chromatic aberration is well controlled: much better than I expected. Testing the SV against a superb Tak TSA102 triplet, I found the SV its equal on deep-sky objects: pinpoint stars against a very dark background. Views of the first quarter moon with the SV showed wonderful contrast and sharp detail at 101x with no hint of false color. At 203x, the image remained very sharp with the slightest hint of deep red in crater shadows. Jupiter showed a solid black dot in a Ganymede shadow transit and excellent high-contrast detail in the belt and zone structure. The Tak displayed just a bit better contrast and color purity. On double stars, the SV easily resolves to Dawes' limit, but a splash of red appears in the first diffraction ring of brighter stars (Epsilon Bootis A, Antares, etc.) at higher powers when the seeing deteriorates. Epsilon Lyrae is beautifully resolved into 4 sharp pinpoints at 203x, though the stars take on a slight yellowish cast because of the residual color error. Overall, I'm VERY impressed. The SV yields a better image than the 2 Borg 101ED's that I owned and also outperforms the Vixen ED102 f/6.5. Given the limitations of the SV102ED's glass types, short f/ratio, and low price, I believe it to be an excellent deal. I'll be writing a full review for ASTROMART in the near future.

Clear and steady skies,
Larry Carlino

I have both the C-9.25" and Meade LX-50, 7" Mak. Both scopes display outstanding planetary performance: razor-sharp with excellent contrast. The additional light grasp of the Celestron makes it superior, however. Saturn takes on a 3-D appearance with not only fine belt detail on the disc of the planet, but the occasional glimpse of the (real) Encke division when the seeing is good. The C-9 also shows the discs of Jupiter's Galilean moons easily. Either scope is an exceptional value: great optics that approach the image quality of an APO refractor. Maybe I'm just lucky, but as good as the Meade 7" is, the Celestron has the best image quality of ANY catadioptric I've ever looked through, and that includes Tak Mewlons and Intes-Micro Mak-Newts.

Larry Carlino