Astro Image – Tele Vue Optics

Tele Vue-76: Imaging the Southern Hemisphere

Our very portable Tele Vue-76 APO refractor has been popular with eclipse-chasers as well as with users that cross over into spotting and birding. With the popularity of small and powerful dedicated imaging cameras, the performance of the Tele Vue-76 is getting noticed by deep-sky imagers on the go. Case in point, Diego Cartes Saavedra is producing outstanding deep-space images from various locations in the southern-hemisphere with this scope. All his images in this blog post were taken from July through November 2018.

Diego’s study of the Tarantula Nebula and surrounding region in the Large Magellanic Cloud examines the area imaged through different filters. The first image is a monochrome version taken in Hydrogen-α light.

NGC 2070 – Narrowband H-Alpha by AstroBin user Diego Cartes. Copyright Diego Cartes. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-76 APO refractor with Tele Vue TRF-2008 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (converts Tele Vue-76 to 380mm f/5) and ZWO ASI 1600MM Cooled Pro monochrome camera though ZWO 36mm H-alpha filter for 62×300″ for a total of 5.2-hours.

Tele Vue-85: Portable, Powerful, Photo-Visual APO

Imaging a rare celestial event requires advanced planning, the right equipment, and often a lot of post-processing. Tony Cook traveled from the UK to Paphos on the southwest of coast of Cyprus (we suppose for the over 300 sunny days a year) to image the 2004 Transit of Venus with his Tele Vue-85, Coronado SM60 hydrogen alpha filter, Canon 10D camera, and Losmandy GM-8 mount. The 85’s optical capabilities and airline portability often makes it a favorite for amateur astronomers chasing down rare events like this.

Transit of Venus – 8th June 2004 by AstroBin user Tony Cook. License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons. Used by permission. Tele Vue-85 APO refractor with Coronado SM60 hydrogen alpha filter and Canon 10D camera. This is actually a synthetic color image created from the luminosity of the green channel of the photos. Click image link to read how post-processing was carried out to create this detailed composite image.

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Tele Vue-NP101is Imaging the Skies of Rhode Island!

We found unique takes on familiar deep-sky objects on David Augros’ AstroBin account. They were taken with our Tele Vue-NP101is refractor (photo/visual, 101mm, f/5.4 APO) using our Large Field Corrector (LCL-1069) and modified Canon EOS 6D DSLR.

Rho Ophiuchi & Friends by AstroBin user David Augros. Copyright David Augros. Used by permission. NP101is APO refractor plus Large Field Corrector (LCL-1069) with Lumicon Deep Sky 2″ filter into modified Canon EOS 6D DSLR.

The first impression is of a dark canvas, sprinkled with white pinpoints and bright cloud-like strokes of gold, red, and blue. Brilliant jewels were seated in the colorful clouds and several dense clusters of diamond dust were scattered on this celestial painting. Dark clouds emerge from the canvas and contrast themselves among the dots and colored hues.

We asked David how he got involved in astro-imaging and why he choose this scope. He told us in his own words.

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Jeff Bennett’s Tele Vue-NP127is Images

The Rosette Nebula by AstroBin user Jeff Bennett. Copyright by Jeff Bennett. Tele Vue TV-NP127is with QSI 683 wsg-8 camera using Astronomik Ha 6nm and RGB filters for 25×300″ (2.1-hrs) total on November 27, 2017.

This year we received a phone call from Jeff Bennett with some questions about his new TV-NP127is scope. He’d only been using it since the fall of 2017 but was very enthusiastic and told us he’d tried other scopes, but the NP127is was the best he’d ever used. We viewed his astrobin.com page and we were impressed with his initial results. So, we asked him to tell us why he chose the NP127is for astro imaging and he told us in his own words.

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Tele Vue-NP127fli Imaging the Skies Over Austria

We’ve been following the great work of astro-imager Patrick Winkler from Austria through his Instagram account @cel_objects. Among the varied camera lenses and scopes used for these images was our own Tele Vue-NP127fli astrograph. The strength of this scope is wide-field imaging and his work in this area is exemplary.

Double Cluster(NGC 869 & NGC 884) image is copyright by Patrick Winkler. Tele Vue-NP127fli astrograph equipped with FLI MicroLine ML 16200 monochrome camera, FLI CFW 2-7 filter wheel, and FLI Atlas focuser was mounted on an Astro Systeme Austria Direct Drive ASA DDM60 Pro mount. Exposure was as follows through RGB filters (minutes): 63 63 63.

For instance, with the NP127fli he was able to perfectly frame and capture the spirit of the NGC 869 and NGC 884 in Perseus as twin clusters of sparkling blue-white diamonds, with a smattering of glowing red-rubies, punctuating the black velvet sky background. The Double Cluster never looked so good!

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The Art of Sketching the Moon at the Eyepiece

Galileo’s telescopic sketches of the moon from “Sidereus Nuncius” published in March 1610. Animation created from public domain images obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

The changing face of the moon has long been documented by artists. In the early 1600’s, the introduction of the telescope allowed for detailed sketching of lunar features at the eyepiece. The most celebrated early telescope sketcher was Galileo Galilei. His artistic training allowed him to understand that the jagged appearance of the lunar terminator (day/night line) seen in the eyepiece was due to the topography of craters, mountain, and ridges on the moon. These irregular shadows on the moon had puzzled earlier observers that considered the moon to be a flat disk with markings on it.

Copernicus Crater by AstroBin user Tanglebones. Copyright by the artist. Used by permission. Tele Vue Panoptic 35mm eyepice with Tele Vue 2x Powermate using Sky-Watcher Mak 180 Pro scope.

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NP127is: Imaging the Skies Over Denmark

NGC 1333 reflection nebula in Perseus from Brorfelde Observatory (Luminance) 7/8 January 2018 and Drøsselbjerg (RGB) 14 February 2018. (Cropped, click for full-image.) Equipment: TeleVue-NP127is, ZWO ASI 1600MM cooled mono camera, and Baader filters, on Track The Stars TTS 160 Panther mount. Luminance: 39x300” by Niels Haagh & Niels V. Christensen at Brorfelde. RGB each: 20x120” by Niels Haagh at Drøsselbjerg. NGC 1333 … by AstroBin user Niels V. Christensen. Copyright Niels V. Christensen. Used by permission.

We spotted some great Tele Vue-NP127is images on Instagram and AstroBin recently. They are the work of a collaboration between Niels Christensen and other amateurs from Denmark. We contacted Niels to learn more.

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Szabolcs Nagy: Powermate™ User Profile

For most people an overhead pass of the International Space Station (ISS) looks somewhat like a bright airliner crossing the sky. Not for Szabolcs Nagy: with his 1,200mm Dobsonian scope and 2.5x Tele Vue Powermate™ he can get up-close video of this bright streak that resolves into individual solar panels, modules, and even docked capsules!

“ISS with Some Details” (crop) by flickr.com user Szabolcs Nagy. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Sky-Watcher 250/1200 FlexTube Dobsonian with Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate™ and imaged with ZWO ASI120MM monochrome camera with ZWO red filter from London in May 2017. “Summer is full on in London, which means amazing sky with no clouds at all. We had four passes during the night, two directly over head. But couldn’t stay up longer than the first one, which climbed ‘only’ about 64° of elevation.”

#televue40: Deep Space Objects

At the beginning of 2017, in honor of Tele Vue’s 40th year, we asked you to tag your social media images taken with or taken of Tele Vue equipment with the hashtag #televue40. You did so and there are too many images to highlight them all, but we’ll bring you a few at a time though these blog posts.

Some of the many Deep Space Objects, imaged with Tele Vue equipment, that were taken or processed during our 40th year. See following text for credit and copyright notices.

This installment features gorgeous images of Deep-Sky Objects (DSOs) taken with Tele Vue hardware. Some of the images are in Hydrogen-alpha (b&w) and others full-color. Exposure times range from hours (one night’s work) to over a day (several nights work)!

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#televue40: Your Tele Vue Solar Images

At the beginning of the year, in honor of Tele Vue’s 40th year, we asked you to tag your social media images taken with or taken of Tele Vue equipment with the hashtag #televue40. You did so and there are too many images to highlight them all, but we’ll bring you a few at a time though these blog posts.

A mesmerizing image of solar activity frozen in time: swirling jets of gas encompass a dark sunspot and accompanying bright plages near limb of the sun — while spicules dance along the solar horizon. Monochrome and colorized, hydrogen-α image with Lunt LS230THa scope and Tele Vue 4x Powermate™ into RED Dragon Epic 18MP monochrome camera . Copyright Stephen Pizzo.

Our “ruby anniversary” year coincided with the Great American Eclipse —the dominant astronomical event of the year. So many of the #televue40 images featured prominence, sunspots, and the eclipsed sun .

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