At last: The Takahashi FCT-125

I am in Oita, Japan visiting relatives and have finally got my hands on my Tak FCT-125. I bought this unseen and had it delivered to my relatives here.

In order to try it out, and to have an equatorial mount I can use on visits, I picked up a Vixen GP mount and an AL-90 tripod for a good price from Yahoo auction.

I intended to get a HAL-130 tripod, but couldn't get one delivered in time. The FCT-125 is a little over the capacity of this setup, but the GP seems to handle it well. I'm tempted to get motors so that I can do some imaging when I'm here.

The skies are fairly dark here, and last night the clouds cleared. Before the Moon rose, I got the best views of M42, M45 and the Milky Way around Auriga I have ever seen. Despite being low in the Sky, the "arms" of M42 extended to the edge of a Pentax XW20. M43 was easily visible with direct vision, the dark nebula between it and M42 also very evident. The core showed mottling and lots of detail was visible the arms and above (i.e. south of) the trapezium. I suspected some nebulosity around the Running Man nebula, but couldn't be sure. Rigel was easily split with a Meade Series 4000 15mm plossl, and a 5mm Ortho, despite the low elevation and fairly poor seeing.

The wide-field views of the Milky Way were stunning, with thousands of stars visible in one field of view.

Despite being over capacity, the GP worked perfectly well. I found an extra-long counter-weight shaft, also on Yahoo auction. This allows using less weight to balance the scope, and I was able to use just one 3.7kg weight. The AL-90 tripod is much smaller and lighter than the HAL-130. This would be a nice setup to use with mid-sized scopes for travel.

I didn't waste time faffing around with testing the optics. I'll wait until I'm back under Singapore's bright, muggy skies before doing that. There doesn't seem to be any immediately obvious problems and overall the scope appears to be near mint condition.

I also managed to find the f/4.5 reducer for the FCT. I'll try this out when I have time back home. Strangely, another brand new reducer turned up for sale a week after I bought mine.

I also got a Borg 1.04x 35mm flattener and 67 flattener, again from Yahoo auction and in excellent condition.