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.
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!
In this next image, hot massive blue stars, embedded in a “cloud” of dust and gas, put out copious amounts of ultraviolet light that energizes the atoms in the cloud and causes them to glow.
I’ve been a huge fan of Tele Vue ever since buying my first “real” eyepiece, a 24mm Tele Vue Widefield, back in 1985. I purchased my Tele Vue-76 in 2015 at the Table Mountain Star Party from Sunriver Nature Center and Observatory to use as a high quality, portable visual scope and was immediately impressed by the wide-field and pinpoint sharp views. I’d recently gotten into astrophotography, so it wasn’t long before a camera found its way onto the back of the Tele Vue-76. The same qualities that make it a great visual scope translate over to imaging. After several years of use, I’m still wowed by what this little scope can deliver.
In this next example, brilliant stellar jewels light up colorful clouds and reveal dark clumps of dust in this image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex — one of the closest stellar nurseries to Earth.
For imaging, I eventually added a Feather Touch focus motor from Starlight Instruments, but the Tele Vue-76 is otherwise still in its stock configuration. The 2″ focuser has consistently proven more than capable of holding a cooled CCD camera and filter wheel. I highly recommend the Tele Vue-76 to anyone interested in astronomy or astrophotography.
This image of a “ghost” floating in the void was made by the glow of Hydrogen-alpha light. The “ghostly” gas is bombarded by ultraviolet light from the star above it. This energizes the hydrogen atoms in the cloud to glow. This image has to be viewed full-size to be appreciated (click image).
Meet the Tele Vue-76!
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.
Tele Vue-76 is a 76-mm diameter objective, 480mm focal length, f/6.3, APO (Doublet) refractor that combines compact size with APO optical performance and 2″ eyepiece capability. The maximum field-of-view is an almost binocular-like 5.5° with our 41-mm Panoptic (11.7x) or 55mm Plössl (8.7x). The 5.0° field-of-view of the 31mm Nagler (15.5x) is another option for wide-field/self-finder use. The 2″, 10:1 dual speed, rack-and-pinion focuser features dual tension adjustment screws on the drawtube and dual lock screws on the end-ring. The OTA includes a sliding metal dew shield and screw-on metal lens cap. Available in tough, durable, powder-coated ivory or green tube colors. A custom-fitted padded case with room for accessories is included. The latitude of power and field afforded by this scope allows you to explore astronomical, spotting, and birding targets with the same scope. Available in ivory or green tube, all Tele Vue telescopes come with a 5-year Limited Warranty.
Optional Tele Vue-76 Accessory Package (TVP-3066) adds 3” tube ring- with mounting threads, a telescope balance aid bar that allows for a greater range of shifting the OTA over the mount (great when trying to balance binocular viewers or heavy eyepieces and cameras), 2″, 90° Everbrite dielectric (99%, 1/10-wave) coated mirror diagonal with 1¼” eyepiece adapter and brass clamp rings, and 18.2-mm DeLite eyepiece with 20-mm eye-relief that yields 2.3° true field of view at 26x in the Tele Vue-76.
Did you observe, sketch, or image with Tele Vue gear? We’ll like your social media post on that if you tag it #televue and the gear used. Example:
#televue #tv85 #ethos #jupiter
Instagram users! Do you want your Tele Vue images re-posted on Tele Vue Optics’ Instagram account? Use this hashtag for consideration:
#RPTVO
Jupiter Opposition July 14th !
The largest major planet reaches opposition from Earth on the 14th of this month. This means it will rise at sunset and be in the sky all night long. Jupiter will be easy to spot and point out to your friends at a brilliant -2.7 magnitude. It will also be large in the eyepiece at 47.6″. Jupiter will stay larger than 47″ and brighter than -2.7 magnitude until early August. For tips and resources on viewing and imaging this planet, see our blog post from last year’s opposition event.
Pluto Opposition July 15th !
The largest major planet and (perhaps) the largest of the dwarf planets reach opposition from Earth a day apart. On July 16th, little Pluto will be exactly 17 magnitudes fainter than Jupiter at 14.3 magnitude and only 0.1″ in diameter. You’ll need to hunt around with a big scope to find it easily. Over the same time period discussed for Jupiter, Pluto will undetectably dim and not change size appreciably. While the Pluto opposition will not generate the same interest as the Jupiter opposition, perhaps the proximity of planets (less than 2º) will inspire some amateurs to “hop over” and view and image this distant world.
Did you observe, sketch, or image with Tele Vue gear? We’ll like your social media post on that if you tag it #televue and the gear used. Example: #televue #tv85 #ethos #jupiter
Do you want your Tele Vue images re-posted on Tele Vue Optics’ Social Media accounts? Use this hashtag for consideration: #RPTVO
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