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Gear recs: Takahashi E-130D/E-160ED as a traveling scope?

Equipment Reflectors Buying Advice
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Nick Cesare avatar
Nick Cesare avatar

I’m in the market for a new telescope and open to recommendations. Here’s my situation:

  • I live relatively close to dark sites—20 minutes from Bortle 4 and an hour from Bortle 2—so I will drive to almost all my imaging locations.

  • I don’t have permanent access to a dark site for multi-night shoots, so I’m interested in a “light bucket” that will let me get plenty of good data in a few hours of imaging.

  • I have a full-frame mirrorless camera, so a 44mm image circle is important to me.

  • I don’t mind tinkering with a telescope to get excellent performance and I’m willing to learn new skills like collimation.

  • I’m mainly interested in comets and nebulae, so 400mm to 600mm of focal length should be fine.

My budget is about $5,000 on the upper end, though obviously I’d like to spend as little as I can. That includes the telescope and any accessories, like collimation equipment, telescope rings, etc. I already have a camera and mount that can carry 40 lbs (18 kg).

Given everything above, I think one of the Takahashi reflectors would be a good fit for me, but I have a few concerns:

  • Will I need to collimate before every imaging session? (Remember that I’ll be driving to dark sites with the telescope.) If so, is it uniquely difficult to collimate in the field?

  • I’m interested in the 1.5x extender that Takahashi offers for each of their reflectors. Does anyone have experience with these? How is the image quality?

  • Takahashi lists a 44mm image circle in the specs for each of these telescopes, but how good is the image really in the corners of a full frame sensor?

  • Is the extra 30mm of aperture diameter worth it for the 160ED? I think it’s about $1,400 more, and the 160ED isn’t in stock anywhere at the moment.

I’ve mentioned the Takahashis here because they caught my eye, but I’m open to other recommendations. My priorities are aperture and image quality. Eager to hear everyone’s thoughts.

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Bill McLaughlin avatar
Bill McLaughlin avatar

Having had a 130D (currently for sale) IMHO any fast reflector is too sensitive to collimation for travel and since they can be a challenge to collimate you would spend too much time just making sure it was working.

They can be great for fixed locations and even OK if all you are doing is taking them inside and outside but I would not suggest one for travel.

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Alex Nicholas avatar
Alex Nicholas avatar

Because I’m cheap, I have the Sharpstar 15028HNT because the Epsilon 160 was too rich for my blood.. While the consensus is that the Tak is far more stable for collimation, I can tell you this about any SUPER fast newtonian.

- You will NEED to at least check collimation every night unless it is permanently installed on a pier.
- You will spend at least 3~6 making relatively average images while you learn JUST how critical collimation is at F/3 and faster.
- You will lose 80% of your hair, attempting to eliminate 25 microns of tilt that absolutely destroys your data.
- You will want to get to your dark site at least 2h before sunset to ensure you have ample light in which to perform your collimation and be 100% satisfied that it will be good enough.
- You will eventually get everything right by some fluke, and not be able to do it again for 2 months.
- You will get everything right then 40 minutes into a session, realise that dew is accumulating on your secondary mirror or on the corrector lense in the focuser tube, and lose the night, then spend time or money (or both) making/procuring a dew shield you didn’t think you’d need.

If… If you’ve not quit astronomy and taken up kayaking by this point… You will be rewarded with:
- INCREDIBLE images.
- Signal to noise ratios reaching acceptable levels in a couple of hours rather than nights..
- A whole new skillset around telescope tuning, optimisation and modification.

I’ve had my Sharpstar 15028HNT for 8 months or so… I had stray light issues, I had reflection issues, I had horrible gradients, I had monumental tilt issues, collimation stability issues, dew issues etc… I’m JUST starting to be able to repeatably produce reasonable images with the scope - and I love it to bits, but there have been NUMEROUS times I’ve wanted to rip it off the mount and throw it at a wall… and I’ve owned plenty of newts in the past..

If your goal is a scope to transport to dark skies and image with, buy a fast refractor. Especially if this will be your first newtonian… an F/4 newt as a first newt could be a greuling experience, F/3.3 or F/2.8 is NOT for for cutting your teeth on…

I’d look for an FRA600 and the F/3.9 reducer, or look at maybe a Redcat 71 or something similar from Askar’s SQA lineup. Yes, f/4.8 is much slower than f/2.8… But you will arrive at your dark sky site, set up, polar align, pull down data, go home and be happy, bypassing a whole SLEW of complicated issues that typically cost months of time or hudreds of dollars to resolve.

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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

For travel? No….

andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar

If you want an easy life than get a fast telephoto lens (Nikon, Canon, Sony) and you’re up there in no time. Same if bulk is an issue. I can collimate an F/3 up to cropped format even in the dark in 5 minutes because I have done it for more that I care to remember but you got to get your mechanics right and tune it well before taking it to the road.

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