Astro Image – Tele Vue Optics

Shelter in Space

Christmas Tree Nebula at Amboy Crater by flickr user William Allen. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Astronomy in the time of Covid-19: *Getting out in the desert for astrophotography is definitely sheltering in space.* Taken at Amboy Crater on March 16, 2020.

Imaging details: Tele Vue-85 APO refractor with Tele Vue TRF-2008 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (converts TV-85 to 480mm f/5.6) imaging into ZWO ASI071 MC Pro Camera. Accessories: Tele Vue Starbeam Finder with Apertura illuminator, ZWO 30F4 Guides Scope with Starlight XPress Lodestar X2 Guide Camera. Mount: Celestron CGX EQ. Software: Celestron PWI, PHD2 Guiding, Astro Photography Tool 3.82.

Getting out in the desert for astrophotography is definitely sheltering in space.

We encountered the above phrase, this week, in the caption of an image of the Christmas Tree Nebula, made with our Tele Vue-85 APO refractor. We felt it apropos for our hobby as it succinctly conjures the connection between amateur astronomy and our current moment in world history.

The image was posted to Flickr by Los Angeles based amateur Bill Allen. So we decided to ask Bill about his journey into astronomy and astrophotography and showcase some of his images in this week’s blog.

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Your 2019 Mercury Transit Images!

Mercury Transit 2019-11-11 Time 10-03-50-0631 by flickr user Photon_chaser. Copyright Frank Tornyai. Mercury is about to leave the face of our Sun. Hα image through Wollensak 153/1200 achromat using Quark Chromo with Tele Vue 4x Powermate™ using Lunt double stacked etalons, and ASI174 mono camera. Software used was Genika Astro capture, PIPP, AS!3 , Images Plus and Photoshop.

Images from the 2019 Mercury Transit made with Tele Vue gear have now been posted to social media. We present here the best (with permission) and note that Tele Vue Powermate™ amplifiers “shone” in the creation of most. Not only does Powermate™ help fast, modern scopes achieve a focal length suitable for imaging the tiny planet, but some high-end, drawtube-side, narrow-band filters requires a Powermate’s telecentric operation to create parallel rays for best image contrast. (See Daystar application of Rear-Mounted Filter page).

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NP101is: Imaging the Skies Over Northern California!

Flaming Star Nebula (Hubble Pallet) by Instagram user Michael Stark. All Rights Reserved. The bright star AE Aurigae, in the center of the image, is surrounded by flame-like nebulosity. Though there is no actual flame, the UV light from this star is responsible for ionizing the gas in the nebula and causing it to glow. The nebula is about 1,500 light years away in the constellation Auriga (the Charioteer). Tele Vue-NP101is photo/visual APO telescope with ZWO ASI1600MM monochrome camera and Starlight Xpress 2″ Filter Wheel carried on Losmandy GM8 mount. 4-hours of exposures through Hubble Pallet Baader filters: OIII, Hydrogen-α and SII.

We noticed a new and very active imager using a Tele Vue NP101is pop up on Instagram this year. We asked Michael Stark to tell us about his journey into astro-imaging.

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Solved: Mystery of how the Apollo 11 Landed in Central Park!

There’s been a minor buzz among some Internet forum inhabitants concerning the appearance of an Apollo 11 eyepiece in Central Park on the TODAY show. In this blog post, Al Nagler explains how it “landed” there.

Still frame from TODAY show (13 Aug 2019) segment “*Between the Moon & New York City”* © 2019 NBC UNIVERSAL

On June 4, 2019, Wylie Overstreet, a sidewalk astronomer who made a video showing Los Angeles pedestrians the Moon with his 12″ Dobsonian and 13mm Ethos eyepiece, called me.

“The TODAY Show found our short film A New View of the Moon and contacted me to do some Moon observing with the hosts of the show and the public for a segment on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo landings,” he said. He then asked: “I’d really love to use some Tele Vue loaners! Would this be something you guys would be amenable to?”

A New View of the Moon. On the sidewalks of Los Angeles: a 12″ collapsible Dobsonian reflector with Tele Vue 13mm Ethos and Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune.

Paracorr Type-2: Imaging the Skies with Luca Marinelli

This week’s guest blog post is by Luca Marinelli. He images the sky with a Teleskop Service ONTC 10″ Carbon Tube f/4 Newtonian equipped with our Tele Vue Paracorr Type 2 coma corrector.

The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2244): Animals on Parade by AstroBin user Luca Marinelli. All rights reserved. Imaged through Teleskop Service ONTC 10″ f/4 Newtonian with Tele Vue Paracorr Type 2 coma corrector and ZWO ASI1600MM Pro mono camera. The narrowband filters used for imaging reveal various layers of material within the heart of the Rosette. The resulting dimensional quality draws the viewer from the ruddy edges of the nebula into the aqua-colored center and then out the “back” aperture of the structure. Filters used in this Hubble SHO palette image were: Astrodon Narrowband 3nm: Ha (26×300″, 44×360″), OIII (74×360″), SII (4×300″, 54×360″) with Gain: 139, Offset: 50 for a total integration time of: 19.7 hours. Software: Main Sequence Generator Pro, PHD2 Guiding, PixInsight 1.8, & Photoshop CC.

I have been interested in photography since a very young age. I remember learning to take pictures with my father’s Russian-made Zenit-E 35mm fully-manual SLR (you had to remember to close the iris by hand before shooting to set the desired aperture!) when I was in elementary school. I have pursued nature and adventure photography ever since and some of my images have been published.

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Astro Sketching the Universe!

We posted some Instagram sketches of the July 2019 Total Solar Eclipse from Chile last month made by Pekka Rautajoki — who traveled all the way from his native Finland to be there. We found a trove of blog-worthy images, he posted on Instagram, made with Tele Vue eyepieces and Tele Vue-85 APO refractor. They encompass a broad range of objects from the northern and southern hemispheres. So, it was only inevitable that we invited him to write a guest blog post based on his exquisite work!

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Jupiter Opposition June 2019!

Solar System (Jupiter) by flickr user Eugene Beygin. All rights reserved. Here Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is facing Earth with the four Galilean satellites (labeled) on either side of the giant planet. Taken through Celestron C6-N Newtonian (6″, f/5) with Tele Vue 3x Barlow through QHY5III224 color CMOS planetary camera and tracked by Celestron AVX mount.

On June 10th, Jupiter was closest to the Earth and rose at sunset — placing it in the sky all night long. The timing makes it well placed for observation throughout much of the summer. Currently, the planet is at its best for the year, at magnitude -2.6 with an angular diameter of 46-arc-seconds. It will “fade” slightly to a still very bright magnitude -2.1 and shrink to 36-arcseconds by the start of fall, where it will be in the west at sunset, setting just a few hours later. So, now is prime-time to view and image this gas giant planet, its famous Great Red Spot (GRS), and attendant giant moons.

NP101is: Imaging the Skies Over Louisiana

Lagoon (Ha,OIII,SII) emission nebula by flickr user Phil Wollenberg. All rights reserved. Tele Vue NP-101is APO refractor with SBIG STF-8300M camera using Baader filters and tracked with Losmandy G-11 using QHY 5L-IIM guider. Ha (8x300s & 1x600s), OIII (2x600s), and SII (2x600s). From White Horse Camp, Sandy Hook, MS.

The Lagoon Nebula (also M8, and NGC 6523) in the constellation Sagittarius is well-known to amateur astronomers. It is a giant star forming region with an open cluster of stars embedded within (visible on the right side of the image). A giant O-type star pumps out massive amounts of ultraviolet light that energizes the gasses in the nebula and cause them to emit light in their distinctive characteristic colors. By taking images through emission line filters, astronomers can see what elements are contained in the nebula. In this image made with Hydrogen-alpha, Sulfur II, and Oxygen III filters, the bluish glow of ionized Oxygen predominates in the center of the nebula.

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Tele Vue and the Moon Men from Philly!

Philly Moon Men in Rome! Telescope is TV-76 on Tele-Pod mount. Credit: Philly Moon Men

We got a call into the office a while back from the “Philly Moon Men.” The caller identified himself as one of “Moon Men.” He told us of their astronomy outreach project in the city of Philadelphia and would we like to be part of it in any way? Al has been a sidewalk astronomer since a teenager and David was more than happy to listen to their ideas and help guide them towards their goal. They’ve setup scopes on street corners and vacant lots in the inner-city to show people that they live in a Universe. Because every human being that has ever lived has looked at the same Moon, all humanity is connected by the sight of this celestial object.

We were intrigued by their youthful enthusiasm and dedication to using telescopes as a means of bridging socioeconomic gaps. We invited them to meet us at the Northeast Astronomy Forum at the beginning of April to make connections with other outreach groups and see how other ideas meshed with their own. Two smartly dressed Moon Men showed up and told us more about their adventure with astronomy and how the NEAF experience was invaluable to furthering their understanding of what’s going on in the outreach community. Frankly, they were quite surprised at how much was already going on!

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Tele Vue’s NP127fli in the Land Down Under!

Large Magellanic Cloud/Tarantula Nebula Widefield by AstroBin user Jarrett Trezzo. All rights reserved. This field shows the Tarantula Nebula (bottom-half reddish nebulae) and a section of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). TeleVue NP127fli with FLI ProLine 16803 camera and Astrodon LRGB filters exposed for 6×300″ (bin 1×1) for luminance and 12×150″ (bin 2×2: Red, Green, & Blue: 4 x 150 each) for color. Total integration time was 1.0 hour. All riding on 10Micron 2000 HPS equatorial mount. From Siding Spring, NSW, Australia.

Our blog often profiles an imager employing one of our scopes. But this week we have a twist: we profile a single Tele Vue scope used by many imagers! It all began when we started spotting deep space images, posted on-line, created with our Tele Vue-NP127fli dedicated astrograph. All the images were made from Australia by different people. It turns out this scope is part of iTelescope.net’s collection of robotic scopes at Siding Spring Observatory. Labeled as the “T9” scope, it does wide-field imaging with the FLI ProLine PL16803 (52mm diagonal CCD) camera.

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