Tele Vue-85: Imaging Under New York City Light Dome!

Deep sky images and annotated map courtesy of Mauri Rosenthal. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Mauri Rosenthal’s Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate solar images appeared in our Here Comes the Sun! blog last December. Imaging from just 10-miles (16-km) from New York City, it was reasonable to expect that his flickr and Instagram walls featured images of the Sun, Moon, and Planets. To our surprise, we also saw some images of deep-sky objects (DSOs), taken with a Tele Vue-85, from the same light-polluted location. We were intrigued at how he was able to get such reasonable results from his poorly situated location and asked if he’d relate his experiences in this blog.

It turns out we’d found the right guy for the job. Mauri wasn’t a “typical” amateur astronomer/imager: he actually teaches Urban Astrophotography in New York City, under the auspices of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York. His instructor’s biography, on aĀ  recent class registration page, describes Mauri’s motivation as follows:Ā 

Surprised by the image quality achievable with small telescopes from his yard in Westchester County, Mauri has been developing deep expertise in Ultraportable Urban Astrophotography and is on a mission to use new technology to extend the access of city-dwellers to the wonders of the night sky.

In this guest blog post, we asked Mauri about his overall experience and how Tele Vue Optics contributes to the enjoyment of his hobby.

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Imaging the Skies with the Tele Vue-NP127is

We’re quite impressed with Frank Wielgus’ exquisite collection of wide-field, deep-sky images on SmugMug. Photographed with a Tele Vue-NP127is APO refractor, the attention to image capture and software craftsmanship is evident in his collection of galaxies and nebulae. His images have often been selected as winners in the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh’s Kevin J. Brunelle Photography Contest.

In his guest blog Frank shows and tells us the story of his astrophotography.

Sh2-155 — Cave Nebula (crop) by SmugMug user Frank Wielgus. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity delightfully combine with young stars in this area of Cepheus around the Cave Nebula. The ‘Cave’ is the dark area below the red nebulosity at the lower left of the image. Tele Vue-NP127is (127mm, f/5.2, Nagler-Petzval) APO Refractor with Atik 383L Camera on CGEM mount. Exposures were multiple 400 sec. through L, R, G, B filters. Maxim DL and Photoshop CS5 were used. Imaged from Cherry Springs, PA Dark Sky Park.

I started astrophotography in the early ’90s using film. It was a Pentax camera with screw mount lenses, piggybacked on an SCT using slide film. Boy, Iā€™m glad those days are gone! I have recently started using those lenses again on a wide field DSLR set up. I then moved to imaging through the SCT. At some point, I wanted to up my game in quality, and for me, that meant a refractor.

M8 – Lagoon Nebula by SmugMug user Frank Wielgus. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-NP127is (127mm, f/5.2, Nagler-Petzval) APO Refractor with Atik 383L Camera on CGEM mount. Exposures were 300 sec. each through L (binned 1×1), R (binned 2×2), G (binned 2×2)Ā  & B (binned 2×2) filters. Maxim DL and Photoshop CS5 were used. Imaged from Cherry Springs, PA, Dark Sky Park.

Ever since I first acquired Tele Vue Plƶssls in the early ’90s, I have always admired Tele Vue products. Quality, design, and locality of service were important considerations for me. For these reasons, the NP127is was a dreamed-for acquisition for a number of years. So when the opportunity arose and with the prompting of a good friend, I acquired one. I remember being blown away by the quality. Now stars look like stars and the sharpness with flat field are incredible things to see. Barring any unusual circumstances, this scope and I are in it together for the long haul.

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Tele Vue-76: Imaging New Mexico Skies!

Brian Paczkowski has been employed by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California since 1983. Some of his work includes the Galileo Mission to Jupiter and the Cassini Mission to Saturn.Ā  He is currently the Europa Clipper Science Manager.

Every clear night he images with his Tele Vue-76 installed at a remote observatory located at Dark Sky New Mexico (DSNM). He dedicates his Instagram wall of astroimages, ā€œto my love of astrophotography.ā€Ā 

Bodeā€™s Galaxy (M81), Cigar Galaxy (M82) by Instagram user Brian Paczkowski . All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-76 telescope with Tele Vue TRF-2008 0.8x Reducer/Flattener and QSI 683 CCD camera riding on 10Micron GM2000 HPS II mount. Exposure through Astrodon Lum+Ha+RGB filters at -20C (22 hours of LRGB data and 15 hours of Hydrogen-Alpha). Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop. Images acquired in December 2020.

Located in the northern regions of Ursa Major and 12-million light-years from Earth, the two prominent galaxies in Brian’s image are Bodeā€™s Galaxy (M81) and The Cigar Galaxy (M82). They are joined by NGC 3077 (an elliptical galaxy slightly further away) in the upper-left corner.Ā  All three are gravitationally interacting members of the M81 Group of Galaxies. This wide-field image shows foreground dust in our own galaxy covering the starscape.

In the close-up crop below, the intervening dust is not emphasized in processing. The yellowish core of M81 indicates an older population of stars while the red “spots” are from glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from newly formed young giant stars.

Bodeā€™s Galaxy (M81), Cigar Galaxy (M82) (crop) by Instagram user Brian Paczkowski . All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-76 telescope with Tele Vue TRF-2008 0.8x Reducer/Flattener and QSI 683 CCD camera riding on 10Micron GM2000 HPS II mount. Exposure through Astrodon Lum+Ha+RGB filters at -20C (22 hours of LRGB data and 15 hours of Hydrogen-Alpha). Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop. Images acquired in December 2020.

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Your 2021 Sky Event Planner

All Ready to View by Twitter user Simon Brown. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-NP101is with Tele Vue 2x Powermate and 3-6mm Nagler Planetary Zoom attached to Gibraltar HD4 mount. Tilton on the Hill, Leicester, UK.
A New Year means a fresh opportunity for viewing new targets and old friends in the sky. Start marking up those new 2021 calendars with this year’s astronomical events listed in this week’s blog!

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The “Best” of 2020

Tele Vue Optics, Inc. started the year 2020 optimistically.

For Tele Vue, January 2020 began optimistically: our Apollo 11mm Commemorative eyepiece had started shipping in mid-December and we innocently opined on this blog that the year would be best remembered for “20/20 vision” puns. Our usual round of winter telescope shows and star parties began with David Nagler jetting off for the late-January European Astrofest in London and Al Nagler debuting aĀ 67mm converter for our 55mm Plƶssl eyepiece at the Winter Star Party in February. David Nagler visited the studio at OPT Telescopes in Carlsbad, CA to discuss The Future of Visual Astronomy for an early-February Space Junk Podcast. In March we were looking forward to the “2020 Messier Marathon” and the arrival of Spring in the latter half of the month. Instead, COVID-19 precautions shut us down from March 20th ā€” the first full day of spring ā€” to May 26th. Thankfully, we all returned to work healthy, but the new concept of “social distancing” put an end to any chance of in-person appearances for the rest of the year.

With the strange year of 2020 behind us, we now choose to look back at the positive. In 2020 we managed to publish 34-postings covering a variety of topics. In this week’s blog we’ll examine our most popular stories for the year based on reader raw page views.

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Images: The Great Conjunction!

Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction on 12/20/2020. by Instagram user Rodrigo Carvajal. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The planets were 7.5-minutes-of-arc apart. Imaging was done with 11-inch, f/5 Newtonian Reflector using Tele Vue Paracorr Type-2 Coma Corrector onto a QHY5III 178C Camera. Two 60-second videos combined to correctly expose both planets. From Santiago, Chile. From there, the planets were 23.5-deg above the horizon at sunset.

The Jupiter and Saturn “Great Conjunction” was well-publicized and well-imaged. Even though the closest approach between the planets was Monday, they’re still in the vicinity and worth a look tonight! This gallery contains some of the best images of the event we found on-line, acquired with Tele Vue products.

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Have You Been Watching Jupiter & Saturn?

A simulated eyepiece view of the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction on 21 December 2020 with stars removed. The field of view is about Ā¼ degrees. The four Galilean moons will be easy to spot. Saturnā€™s moons are much dimmer and will blend in with the field stars. Your view may be rotated and inverted depending on the equipment used and location on the Earth.
Great Conjunction: Countdown to December 21st!
On December 16th, Jupiter and Saturn will be a full-Moon’s width apart at dusk as they sink into the south-western horizon. Watch this pair each evening as they draw ever-closer together until they pass within 1/10 of a degree on December 21st. This is the great Jupiter / Saturn Conjunction of 2020! This is the closest they’ve been together since 1623 and most sources say that conjunction was not observed due to the planet’s vicinity to the Sun. The last time the pair was definitely visible this close together was in 1226 in the morning sky. This is a rare “must-see” event indeed!

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BREAKING NEWS: Apollo 11mm and Sky Events!

Al Nagler, Tele Vue Optics founder.
Tele Vue Sells Out of Limited Edition Apollo 11 Eyepiece!
Last year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and in recognition of Al Nagler’s contribution to the greater effort that made the mission possible, we “launched” a limited run of 300 commemorative Apollo 11mm eyepieces.Ā 
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While we have shipped our last Apollo 11mm eyepiece recently, dealers may still have some in stock. Act now if interested!
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Tele Vue Apollo 11mm eyepiece is an original design, with unique packaging, that included a serialized commemorative medallion matching the engraved number on the eyepiece.
The following note is from Al Nagler.
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Dear Tele Vue Aficionado,

Thank you for your continued enthusiasm for our products. Weā€™re sorry for some product delays due to an unexpected increase in demand during this pandemic time.

Hereā€™s an announcement Iā€™m making today thatā€™s unique in my lifetime, leaving me conflicted between happy and sad:

Weā€™ve sold out of our limited edition special production run of the Apollo 11 eyepiece celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.

Yes, Iā€™m sad they are gone, but happy to have spread more joy among our astronomical community. Little did I know in the 1960s that my design for the LEM Simulator optics, showing a 110Ā° star field to the astronauts would change my life, inspiring me to eventually share wide-field views with fellow amateur astronomers by founding Tele Vue Optics, Inc.

Iā€™d appreciate your taking a few minutes to see my PowerPoint presentation, I Thank My Lucky Stars on the Tele Vue blogĀ to share my life path with you.

Stay well,

Al Nagler

 

Our readers followed the story of the development, arrival, packaging, and distribution of the Apollo 11mm eyepiece on our blog. See the following links:

Images below: (top) Apollo 11mm eyepiece ā€œMagic Momentā€ at Tele Vue headquarters with the development team (left-right): Paul Dellechiaie, Al Nagler, and David Nagler. (Bottom left) Tele Vue CEO Al Nagler with Apollo 11mm eyepiece and his Alan Bean, (4th Man to Walk on the Moon) autographed print. (Bottom right) 2019 NEAF Show tease.

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Here Comes the Sun!

Sunspots 25 Nov 2020 by flickr user Antonio Agnesi. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The image was captured through a Tele Vue Ranger refractor with Celestron Ultima 2x Barlow and Lunt Herschel wedge with Baader Solar Continuum filter. The camera used was a ZWO ASI 120MM. All gear was carried on a Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 mount. Exposures 5ms and the best 120 frames were stacked. macOS software used was ASICap, Lynkeos, and Photoshop CC.

According to a recent Solar Activity Update by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, “Solar activity picked up at the end of November into early December, 2020, as several sunspot groups emerged or rotated onto the visible disk”.Ā  The update continues: “Solar activity is anticipated to slowly increase over the upcoming years towards the predicted solar maximum peak around July, 2025.” This is great news for observers of our nearest star! At times this year, there had been month-long sunspot “droughts” with no or few sunspots on the solar disk.

The return of Sun as a target of interest has led to a sudden uptick in Solar image postings to social media these past few weeks.Ā 

A detailed look at sunspots 2785 and 2786 by Instagram user Michael Harriff. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Taken on 29 November 2020 in Hydrogen-alpha light ā”€ “This was the only clear shooting day in several weeks! šŸ˜©”. A Tele Vue 4x Powermate on a Lunt 80mm MT refractor allowed the system to reach 2,240mm effective focal length for this close-up shot. The camera used was the ZWO ASI174MM (mono).

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