Astro Image – Tele Vue Optics

NP127is: Imaging the Skies Over Upstate New York!

We noticed some great Tele Vue-NP127is images on Instagram tagged with our #RPTVO (repost hashtag). They were all taken by Greg Thompson in Tele Vue’s home region of the Hudson Valley, NY. Due to the weather, one has to be persistent to be an astro-imager in these parts. So, we contacted him and that resulted in this guest blog post in two parts. The first part describes his journey into astrophotography and experience imaging with the Tele Vue-NP127is and the second part is a step-by-step guide for image acquisition and processing.

When I saw the first image of the Orion Nebula on the camera’s LED screen ─ WOW, I was hooked!

As a child, I would always look up at the night sky in hopes of seeing a “shooting star.” I loved the night sky but was never interested in astronomy or cosmology as a young man. I began a photography business in 2011 and had to take early retirement from my day job of 25+ years. My photography led me down many roads, from portraiture and landscapes, birds and wildlife, and many other genres. I had heard of astrophotography but was not interested as I thought it was beyond my reach. Then the television series “How the Universe Works” came to my television in 2016 and could not get enough of it. Soon after, I was browsing a photography forum that I was a member of, and saw some photographs (Deep Sky Objects’s) that a well-known scientist and photometrist had posted using a camera that I already had, and a lens very similar to one of my lenses. That opened my eyes wide and I then began to research everything about astrophotography. Three months later I bought my first camera tracker (Fornax LighTrack II) and accessories to begin my new hobby. That was in the fall of 2016. When I saw the first image of the Orion Nebula on the camera’s LED screen ─ WOW, I was hooked!

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Tele Vue-85: Imaging the Skies Over Queensland Australia!

Vesselin Petkov’s imaging setup consists of the Tele Vue-85 APO refractor with Tele Vue 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (TRF-2008) and ZWO ASI533MC Pro color CMOS camera. Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope with ZWO ASI120MC-S color CMOS camera provides guiding. Tele Vue Starbeam finder allows for swift target area acquisition. All gear is mounted on Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ5 mount. Image by Vesselin Petkov. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

The combination of Tele Vue-85 APO refractor and Tele Vue 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (TRF-2008) create a potent, highly portable, flat/wide-field (480mm @ f/5.6) astro-imaging system. The following gallery of Southern Hemisphere nebulae, by Vesselin Petkov, is a great example of the exquisite results possible with the Tele Vue-85.

Imaging was done from his driveway in Queensland Australia in Bortle class 5 (suburban) skies. We’re impressed that the images presented here are composed of color sub-frames without the use of filters or calibration frames.

The Trifid Nebula by flickr user Vesselin Petkov. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Hardware: Tele Vue-85 with Tele Vue 0.8x Reducer/Flattener (TRF-2008) into ZWO ASI533MC Pro color CMOS camera using AstroImager for Mac software. Guided using Orion Mini 50mm Guide Scope with ZWO ASI120MC-S color CMOS using PHD2 software. All mounted on Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ5.
Imaging: 32 x 300” lights (Temperature -5C; offset 5; gain 10) and no calibration frames from Cairns, Australia in Bortle Scale (1 best, 9 worst) 5 skies. Processing with PixInsight and Photoshop.

“Trifid Nebula” (M20 or NGC-6514) was named by John Hershel (1792-1871) who dubbed it the “Trifid” — from Latin for three parts or lobes — based on his telescopic observations of the divisions in the central part of the object. A single giant star in the center of the nebula powers the red glow of hydrogen gas surrounding it. The outer blue zone is starlight reflecting off of dust. The stars around the nebula are an open cluster.

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Comet NEOWISE in the Northern Skies!

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) has been intriguing northern sky watchers all summer and will continue to do so for a bit longer as it travels through the “paws” of Ursa Major. It became glorious as a morning object for amateur astronomers in June, but, after transitioned to the evening sky in July, it has become better appreciated by the general public.

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Tele Vue-76: Imaging the Skies over Washington!

Andrew Thomas has been posting beautiful wide-field sky images on his Flickr feed. He’s imaging with one of our smaller scopes, the highly portable and capable Tele Vue-76 APO refractor! Here’s an image made by Andrew with this scope during the Great American Eclipse in August 2017.

2017-08-21 Solar Eclipse HDR by flickr user Andrew Thomas. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Andrew writes:
“In this photo, the detailed structure of the solar corona and reflected Earthshine illuminating the surface of the Moon is revealed in this HDR composite of images taken at different exposure lengths. Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, is visible to the far left …”.
Imaged with Tele Vue-76mm APO refractor with Nikon D7100 DSLR camera riding on an iOptron iEQ45 Pro mount. Capture software was Eclipse Orchestrator v3.7. 4 sets of exposures at 1/1600, 1/400, 1/100, 1/25, 1/6, 1/3, and 6/10 sec @ ISO 200, stacked to reduce noise and enhance detail. Location: Madras, Oregon.

Andrew gave us permission to re-post these photos on our blog.

I’m glad you enjoy the images I’ve been able to capture with the Tele Vue-76. It’s a wonderful scope for both visual use and imaging. I don’t think I’ll ever give it up!

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NP127is: Imaging the Skies Over Tampa, FL!

M13 Globular Cluster in Hercules (crop) by Instagram user Jun Luo (xchaos360). All rights reserved. Used by permission. (Click image for full-frame). Considered the finest globular cluster visible from the Northern Hemisphere, M13 contains 100s-of -thousands of stars in a compact “ball” only 145-light-years across. The age of the stars in the cluster date to the formation of the universe.
Imaged with a Tele Vue NP127is APO (Nagler-Petzval) refractor equipped with ZWO ASI2600MC (color, CMOS, APC-C format) camera on Paramount MyT mount from driveway. Exposure time was 48-min using 16×180 sec subframes. Diffraction spikes were added with StarSpikes Pro 4 software.

If you follow the Tele Vue re-post (#RPTVO) hashtag on Instagram you’ll find many stunning images made with Tele Vue gear. That’s how we found Jun Luo (aka: xchaos360) and his Tele Vue-NP127is images. He’s relatively new to astrophotography and has produced some very nice images. We had a conversation with Jun about his use of Tele Vue gear for imaging and what follows is what he told us.

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Powermate Solar Imaging from Kent, UK!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/plndrw/49925540586/ — Proms Mono by flickr user Paul Andrew. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Lunt LS152 Solar Telescope (obj: 152mm / fl: 900mm) with Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate and imaged with ZWO ASI290MM monochrome camera (1936px x 1096px, color added in post-processing). Taken 20th May 2020 from Kent, UK. Solar prominences dance along magnetic field lines on the limb of the active Sun while fibrils of super-heated plasma fill the foreground.

Paul Andrew has been an amateur astronomer since the age of 11. He is the founder and Honorable President of the South East Kent Astronomical Society in the UK. He’s had a number of his astrophotographs published — in particular, his solar images — in national newspapers and on websites as far afield as Russia. He’s been short-listed for the prestigious Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition four times now. We’ve noted his high-quality solar images and discovered that many were made with our Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate in the imaging train. So, we present a selection of his work in this week’s blog.

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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.