I recently bought a nice Takahashi MT-130 on Astromart. I have no real need for a 5.1" Newtonian, but curiosity got to me, since I'd never seen a Tak Newtonian in real life before, and figured I'd give it a try. So far I'm really enjoying it. It's fairly heavy but rides well on my EM-11. The mechanical construction is impressive... collimation is amazingly solid. After being shipped to me I assumed collimation would need a tweak, but before doing anything I decided I'd test it first, so got it up to 500x with my artificial star and the on-axis textbook airy pattern was perfect. Evidently collimation held fine while it was in transit. Mounted on the EM-11 it's quite a nice double star scope, with no trouble on fairly challenging stars like zeta Cnc. Planetary views seem impressive, although I've only had a chance to look at Saturn so far. At this point I'd say planetary performance is in between my old FS-78 and FC-100, which is about what I'd expect from the obstruction.
Anyway, since one doesn't see these very often, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of this telescope in case anybody is curious about these Tak Newtonians. It's a shame they're no longer in production.
Bob
Anyway, since one doesn't see these very often, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of this telescope in case anybody is curious about these Tak Newtonians. It's a shame they're no longer in production.
Bob
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