Ralph Aguirre Reviews

I have repeatedly been able to see a level of clarity with my TOA-130, that even my other astronomical friends have not been able to see with their scopes and equipment. We use a full range of optical instruments we have when we get together for a night of viewing, when I’m not alone at home in my back yard. Everyone present notices these visual differences in how the TOA presents the sky. There are differences compared to other scopes, and the more experienced your eyes are in detecting minute details, the more you will see. The differences have nothing to do with the size of the aperture, it has to do with the clarity in the way space is displayed through the optics. This scope isn’t about aperture. It’s about how Takahashi has designed its optics, to give you every last bit of definition the sky has to offer. One thing others and myself have noticed that happens with the TOA refractor is that it brings out details that arent so noticeable in other scopes. It’s not that they arent there in some other scopes, but the smallest details become more obvious in the TOA. As one friend told me, once you see these small details in the TOA, they become easier to detect in your own scope, which in his case, was his FSQ. An example of this was in looking at the Double Cluster in Perseus. Once the double clusters were seen in the TOA, the multitude of red giants present in the TOA became so obvious, they became easier to detect in other scopes. He also went on to say that everywhere you point the scope, there is something amazing to view in the eyepiece, even if its just a scattered assortment of nameless stars against the darkness of space. That in itself says quiet a bit out the optical performance of the TOA.