Sky Events

Countdown: Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017

Tele Vue President David Nagler exiting our building with all his eclipse observing gear in hand.

The media frenzy is growing as the first total solar eclipse to cross the North American continent in decades is closing in on us.

Our Tele Vue President David Nagler likes to travel light. So he built his eclipse observing kit around the Tele Vue TV-60 and Tele Vue Tele-Pod mount. In fact, he’s shown in the image here with not one but two complete telescope setups with a selection of eyepieces and solar viewers. Here’s a complete list of what he is carrying:

2 Tele Vue-60 APO refractors
2 Everbrite™ 1.25” diagonals
2 Sol-Searchers™
2 Tele-Pod™ Mounts with Eyepiece Caddy Sets
1 Daystar Combo Quark
1 Rechargeable Battery Pack
1 24mm Panoptic™
1 15mm DeLite™
1 13mm DeLite™
1 7mm Delite™
1 5mm Delite™
1 2.5mm Nagler™ Type 6
1 2.5x Powermate™
1 FoneMate™
David’s got everything in the truck with plenty of room to spare for the seven people in his eclipse “expedition”.

The band of totality will start in the Pacific, between Alaska and Hawaii, before crossing from Oregon to South Carolina and ending off the coast of Africa. Millions will see this extraordinary event as totality passes over major population centers from Salem, OR in the west, to Kansas City, MO near the center and Charleston, SC  in the east. A partial eclipse will be visible north to the arctic and south to the tropics.

Eclipse map courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, from eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Eclipse animation courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/A.T. Sinclair, from eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov.

While the longest total eclipse duration is about 2’40”, the partial phases can last about 3-hours. See local media reports for event times in your area.

David Nagler shows us his perfectly portable TV-60 on Tele-Pod mount setup for the Solar Eclipse, using 2.5x PowerMate, 15mm DeLite eyepiece and Daystar Quark H-a solar filter.
#televue40
Tag your eclipse images posted to social media with #televue40 and we’ll link to the best ones.

SolSearcher makes it easy to find the sun.

More Info
For a mobile setup consider a small, properly filtered refractor:
You’ll need a small light-weight mount for it:
FoneMate attaches your phone to Tele Vue eyepieces.
Must-have accessories for any scope include:
Image amplification for short focal length scopes: