Takahashi FRC-300
Takahashi FRC-300: 1-Year Anniversary
It is pretty easy to be enthusiastic about new equipment, particularly equipment with a relatively long delivery lead time. I have noticed that many equipment reviews are written relatively soon after the equipment’s delivery point, which is also true of course for my own review of the Takahashi FRC-300, written one year ago. How are these original observations holding-up? What surprises were uncovered? And, what changes need to be made to my original opinions?
In the Disadvantages Section of my original review, I expressed concern over the potential difficulty in cleaning the primary mirror of the Takahashi FRC-300 should it be needed. I guess my fears at that time exceeded my understanding of the mechanics of the FRC-300 OTA. I had a prior miss-step cleaning the lens of my Takahashi TOA-130, so this time I went out of my way to make sure that I learned how to correctly do the disassembly, cleaning, reassembly, and testing on the first try. I worked closely with Fred Garcia, who by the way is a genius, at TNR to get it right. Actually, it was not that bad. The whole process took only a couple of hours, and the results were perfectly clean and collimated optics. While cleaning is probably not a good idea and may not be needed in the high, dry climates of the western US, here in Florida with humidity often in the high 80’s and 90's and the resulting dew point only 1 or 2 degrees below ambient, mirror cleaning is needed from time to time. My ability to relatively easily clean the primary mirror was a positive surprise. But without Fred’s help I probably would have loosened the bolts locking the primary mirror (which are readily accessible). This would have been a disastrous mistake and would have required a trip to Japan for the OTA.
Essentially all of the wonders of the Takahashi FRC-300 remain. I find myself just as excited about this magnificent telescope as I was one year ago. Here are some specifics:
FLI ProLine09000>FLI-CFW-5-7>FLI-PDF>PreciseParts Custom (29.9mm)>FRC-300
One negative surprise was uncovered in the area of automatic temperature compensation. The FRC-300 has built-in automatic temperature compensation to around 5C. While I have not precisely tracked the temperature changes each night, it seems that a periodic, digital re-focus with FocusMax helps to improve the image quality. I had originally expected that only one focusing procedure per evening session would be required. I have found that here in Florida at least this is not the case, and 2 or 3 re-focuses are important each night.
The Final Results
The final proof of the quality of the OTA must be demonstrated in the quality of the images themselves. However, I still find it unfair to compare images from one astronomer to the other. There are just too many variables involved including for example alignment, tracking and guidance; total exposure times; filter and CCD differences; and how much Photoshop labor and skill are applied to an image. I can only report the noticeable improvements in my own images relative to one year ago. In my original review I used M51 and M16 as quick examples of images that demonstrated the FRC-300’s capabilities with both high magnification for galaxies and wide-field nebula imaging. I hope that by the 5-year anniversary the images will still be getting better. The FRC-300 is not constraining image quality in any way. The constraints arise mainly from my lack of skills. Here are the same Messier objects which are all from the same Takahashi FRC-300 at the 1 year anniversary, and of course it is fair to compare them with those in the original review:
The list price of the FRC-300, while never cheap, has significantly increased over the last year. As I mentioned in the original review, the hyperbolic mirrors were manufactured at least twice for my telescope. Takahashi quality is obvious. The street price reflects these very high standards. There are two ways to look at the price increase, and from my point of view my investment in Takahashi equipment has significantly appreciated.
Mel Schick
June 2, 2007
Original Review of the Takahashi FRC-300, published June 20, 2006:
The new FRC-300 arrived on a clear day in June, 2006. The telescope carried a serial number of 06001. I guess that I am the first new owner of this magnificent flat field Ritchey-Chrétien this year. I had been using a Mead 14” LX200GPS, and while it was acceptable, it was not up to the same optical quality that I was getting from a Takahashi TOA-130. So I took a big risk and ordered the FRC-300. The most painful part of the entire process was the waiting time. The time between the initial order and deposit and the order delivery was seven months. The wait time might have been a couple of months shorter except that the original mirrors apparently failed a Takahashi quality inspection/test. I am actually really happy that they found the problems as part of their high quality standards and manufacturing processes. This is much better than letting me find the problems after delivery. As Art from TNR said, “Quality takes time.” I very much prefer Takahashi over other telescope manufactures because of their truly outstanding quality; it is just that I am short on patience.
Before I placed the order, I assumed that the 2348mm focal length at f/7.83 would make the FRC-300 an outstanding astrograph while still giving enough magnification to take good galaxy images. With its 300mm of aperture I expected good light gathering characteristics, even though I calculated that there would be over 25% area obstruction of the primary mirror from the spider apparatus. With all other OTA’s that I use I had experienced heavy duty vignetting with the CCD camera. Would the FRC-300 do better? The specs promised a large Ø90mm image circle. While I am primarily an astro-imager, I also wanted to be able to come to focus though an eye-piece.
Delivery and Setup
The long wait was finally over. Since this was not my first telescope, I knew that I wanted to proceed slowly and enjoy every moment of the new setup. The OTA itself arrived in a very large package with impressive Japanese language characters handwritten on the outside of the box. (I hoped that it did not say… this is broken). I promised myself that on Day-One I would only take the first step of removing the OTA from its shipping container. This took about 10 minutes, and now I had to wait again for Day-Two.
The FRC-300 was well packaged and protected for its long
shipment from
Day-2: At this point I had decided not to set artificial limits on how fast and how far I would go with the setup process. This didn’t work very well for me either. While I had wanted to take my time with the setup, I completed everything else that needed to be done on Day-2. It was all too easy.
The primary goals for Day-2 were to mount the FRC-300 atop
of the
At this point some might advise me that there will be too much flexure in this tandem configuration. I had pre-tested this approach using the heavier Meade 14” and the NP101 without any problems. So I am proceeding this way with the Takahashi FRC-300. Each time that I have used guidance with this configuration, the FRC-300 and mount have worked very well together averaging less than 0.4 pixels of combined corrected guidance error in X+Y.
Inside of 90 minutes everything was done and ready for some pictures itself:
Daylight Alignments
I needed to slow down as this was all happening faster than plan. So I took a break. I had lunch, and I did some emails… and waited. I decided that I would use the collimating telescope and verified that factory delivered collimation was essentially perfect. It was, and this test took about 15 minutes to do.
The time was now about 2pm on Day-2, so I decided that I should not wait (it might rain or something) and I would roll-out of the garage. I do not have an observatory or a fixed platform. My environment is nightly moves from the garage to the end of the driveway. Here I setup and re-align every night.
Since
it was still daylight, I had the opportunity to do a terrestrial alignment of
the finder scope with the OTA. This
would also be my first experience with the helical focuser on the FRC-300. I was not expecting this to be easy, and it
was not. The Back-Focus distance of the
FRC-300 with just the native corrector is only 105.70mm. As I had feared, I could not get a clear
focus on a stop sign that was about 200 yards away even after having fully
rotated the “captain’s wheel focuser” all the way. Fred at TNR had warned me that this scope was
really an astrograph, and I would not be able to use 2” oculars with it. However, I had purchased at Fred’s suggestion
a Hutech diagonal. With just this little
added focusing capability, I was able to see enough to get a 1st alignment adjustment for the finder scope. Good enough. I will leave the
rest for closer alignment on the heavens using the camera. I really would not want to use the FRC-300 for
much visual observation. The FRC-300
would work, but there are other better options at hand.
First Light
I took another break and some more pictures of the telescope, but I was giving-up with this go slow approach (maybe it would rain?). The time was mid-afternoon, and as I looked to the sky, I noticed a beautiful half moon east of the meridian. I decided to take first light with the FRC-300 at about 3pm using the moon as a target. Having some prior negative experience with the proximity of prime focus between visual and CCD imaging, I decide to do everything with the camera even though it was still daylight. I had read other reviews about the experience of others with large Ritchey-Chrétien telescopes and without fail there were complaints and expressions of difficulty finding the initial focus position. I have an SBIG STL camera and I use a Finger Lakes Precision Digital Focuser (PDF). The PDF lets me achieve a very highly accurate focus position. The back end configuration is as follows without using a focal reducer:
STL11000M>FLI-AD12>FLI-PDF>Precision Parts Custom (36.52mm)>FRC-300
As luck would have it, I was able to shorten the exposure time sufficiently to capture daytime images of the moon. Focusing with the big captain’s wheels was actually very easy. In fact it took only 10-15 minutes to get a crisp, good-enough-for-me first image of the moon. The time wasn’t even 4pm.
Imaging at Night
Finally sun-set arrived on Day-2. I took new flats and for luck a few new dark
images. After darkness arrived, I did a
quick
Below are a couple of new images from a beginner. You can also see more detail on my website at Equipment Recommendations where I also discuss the various equipment comparisons in more detail. I hesitate to show my images as a positive testimonial for this magnificent telescope. I really am just a relative beginner, and I know that my images often are not as good nor as polished as those produced by others. I do not spend much effort making PhotoShop enhancements to my images, and I do not want to take-away from the truly outstanding capabilities of the FRC-300. I can only compare my new images with my own prior images made with the same mount and camera. The differences are striking and confirm my decision to buy from Takahashi.
Yes, it performs even better than I had expected. I get good galaxy magnification and with the same telescope I am able to see wide-fields for nebulas and clusters. I am a very happy camper.
Concerns
I wanted the FRC-300, because I do want to take great CCD images. The FRC-300 would not be my first choice however if I were doing primarily visual observations.
Here in
Conclusion
The 7 month wait for production and delivery was painful. Maybe I am impatient or something. However, the FRC-300 was absolutely worth the wait. I only look forward to many years of fun in the dark with this beautiful, high quality telescope.
Mel Schick
June 20, 2006