Friday, June 08, 2012

"Just wanted to let you know how much I'm enjoying my Tele Vue-85. I'm attaching a couple of images that I think illustrates its versatility.

The first image shows the Sun and Venus setting behind Gosey Hill, near Peytonsville, TN. Gosey Hill is a small rise about two miles away from where I was set up. The Sun was only about 1° above the true horizon, and probably the breeze we had was responsible for the atmosphere being relatively steady at that low altitude. This is a really solid little scope and it presents a small profile to the wind. Both of these factors make it quite steady in a breeze like I had during the transit (note how the mockingbird's breast feathers are blown around its wing covering the white wingbars.)

Funny thing on the mockingbird; he was about 70-feet away in the top of a hackberry and sang throughout the transit. I swung the scope over to him about an hour before sunset, removed my solar filter, just focused and shot. Interesting to think of the highlight in his eye mirroring the transit.

Both images were made with my Tele Vue-85, 0.8x reducer/field flattener, Tele Vue 2x Barlow, and Nikon D5100 camera.

This telescope is a joy to use! The best views of shorebirds that I've ever had have been with this scope! Thanks, (and thanks for making such a great scope!)"

— Bob English Tennessee