Posts Made By: Vahe Sahakian

January 13, 2003 05:19 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Tec 8 maksutov

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

The TEC8 is a fairly expensive scope, is it better than your 10" Meade? only you can decide that. My suggestion is to contact TEC (www.telescopengineering.com) and see if they can help you locate an owner in or close to your area, if there is a TEC8 nearby they will contact the owner first and see if he/she would be willing to do a demonstration for you, TEC will not give you any info on owners without prior permission.
Getting a sharp image at 300x is not easy for any scope, this is where the seeing gets in the way in most areas, if you live in the south you will have a little better chance of pushing your scope to higher powers, and also a sharp image means a differet thing to different folks.
Once again, try to locate one and decide for yourself.

Thanks,
Vahe

July 7, 2003 02:24 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: Takahashi 150FCT -- The best?!?!

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap011017.html

Thanks,
Vahe


February 11, 2007 03:37 PM Forum: Takahashi

Tak LE 10mm

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

My interest is primarily visual lunar/planetary field, I use various Orthoscopics which seem to be the best for this purpose, but I also use Tak 7.5 and 24mm as palnetary eyepieces, the 7.5 despite a slight warm tint is one of my favorites with my 6" apo and with a binoviewer. The next one is 12.5mm, somehow I feel that Tak has left a very important fl. untapped in this series, thus the 10mm LE, I wonder if we will ever see one.

July 11, 2009 12:29 PM Forum: Solar System Observing

The Blue Planet

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

Neptune is going to be fairly close to Jupiter in the next couple of months.
Does anyone know, or point me to a link, as to exactly where it will be in relation to the gas giant, N,S,E or W?

I am using a 10” F/20 scope and finding things with this scope is not very easy, it definitely helps to know in which direction to look.

Thanks in advance
Vahe

January 8, 2010 07:08 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Re: AP 130 on a Teegul Mount?

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

I have seen photos of Tak Teegul Lapides with TEC 8” Maksutovs, these Maks are roughly 23 pounds as opposed to 130AP at 15 pounds, if that mount can support the big Mak and be useable with its very long focal length the AP should not be a big problem.

Also, if you are disappointed with the results you can always sell both the mount and the scope for at least what you have paid if not more.

Vahe

February 2, 2010 02:08 PM Forum: Reflectors

Re: Maksutov Telescopes

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

My suggestion, if this is your first DIY Maksutov;

Build a 6” Mak from scratch, I constructed one a while back, based on my experience a 6” Mak is an order of magnitude more difficult to construct compared to the garden variety 6” F/8 Newtonians for any skilled DIY’s.
Once you get a taste of what it takes to build a small Mak I am pretty sure that you will abandon the 16” Mak project.

A 16” Mak is not a DIY project.

Vahe

February 10, 2010 07:51 PM Forum: Eyepieces

Nikon Eyepieces

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

Nikon has introduced a new NAV series wide angle astronomical eyepieces, anyone know if these are available from US dealers?

http://www.kyoei-osaka.jp/SHOP/nikon-nav-175sw.html

Vahe

May 11, 2003 03:08 PM Forum: Astro-Physics

AP 6" F/12 Superplanetary Refractor

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

For planetary performance you will not be disappointed with the 6" f/12, the glass used in this scope is not ED but the performance, thanks to its long F ratio, is in par with AP's later ED triplets.
IMHO, of all the AP155's, the 155 f/9EDT is the real super planetary from the performance standpoint, absolutely the tightest planetary images that I have seen in this size refractor.

Thanks,
Vahe

May 23, 2003 03:08 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Is it just me or is Al sucking us dry($)....

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

You may want to look at this from another angle, I am told by many dealers that many scope manufacturers as a marketing strategy sell their scopes at or near cost, hoping to make up the loss when they sell you accessories, and particularly eyepieces.

Thanks,
Vahe

June 15, 2003 01:35 AM Forum: Equipment Talk

Made 7" APO to replace my 10"-LX200?

Posted By Vahe Sahakian

The 7" apo will outperform the 10" SCT both on planets and DSO, it is a large scope and reasonably good quality, the single major problem with this particular apo is the faulty cell design, I hear that Meade is finally doing something about it. The safest way to get one of these is to find one on the used market, this will give you a chance to test it befor you buy, and you will save $$, and, all the time and frustrations associated with sending it back to Meade for repairs.

Thanks,
Vahe