NP127is – Tele Vue Optics

NP127is: Return to Imaging over Taos, NM

Back in March 2019 this blog featured a Tele Vue-NP127is APO refractor image gallery by astrophotographer Jerry Macon. All those images were done with red, green, and blue (RGB) filters or a dedicated color camera. Jerry has since added the Hubble Palette filters (SHO: Sulfur II, Hydrogen-alpha [Hα)] and O III) to his repertoire, and the color camera is no longer used. We feel Jerry’s imaging has evolved to another level of perfection in the past two years. So in this blog, we look at some of his latest work with the NP127is.

Sh2-240 (Simeis 147) Supernova Remnant

Cataloged as Simeis 147 and Sharpless 2-240, the name “Spaghetti Nebula” is its most descriptive moniker. This nebula is huge: it spans 3° (6 full-moon widths). It is the remnant dust and gas of a massive star that ended life in a supernova explosion. In this case, it left behind a pulsar (a radio-emitting, spinning neutron star). Due to discrepancies between the estimated age of the nebula and pulsar, some posit that two supernovae explosions happened in this region some time apart. Whatever the history of the object, we can say Jerry’s Spaghetti Nebula is quite tasty to the eye.

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.

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, I’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) & 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 Plössls 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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NP127is Imaging the Skies Over Sydney!

We were struck by the neon-like colors produced by Murray Parkinson’s imaging through our Tele Vue-NP127is APO Refractor using different combinations of Hydrogen-alpha (Hα), doubly ionized oxygen (OIII), and ionized sulfur (SII) filters. His Porpoise Nebula image below looks like it is leaping out of the page! Others agree: he provided the cover and inside cover spread images for Nightfall October 2017 (a journal of astronomy in South Africa). He tells us “I love my two Tele Vue refractors. Only wish you made a 12-inch refractor … .” This week’s guest blog post is a gallery of his work from suburban Sydney, Australia.

“When I became interested in astrophotography, I quickly learned that the quality of the optics was crucial to achieving high-quality results. Only the very finest telescope designs can deliver round, pinpoint stars across the entire frame. I chose the Tele Vue-NP127is partly because of the reputation of Al Nagler and partly because of trust in products made in the USA. I also had a lot of trust in the salesperson who looked after me at BINTEL in Sydney. He always gave excellent advice on what to buy.

“Without a doubt, the versatility of the Tele Vue-NP127is stands out in my mind. The telescope delivers true astrograph performance when imaging at multiple focal lengths. It also delivers brilliant views when used visually and is light enough to transport to a dark sky location on a car camping trip. I still love visual observing and appreciate a telescope that can deliver on all accounts.

The Porpoise Nebula in Canis Major

2019_03_03_EZ_Canis_Major_HaOIII by flickr user Murray Parkinson. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Imaged with Tele Vue-NP127is APO Refractor at f/5.2 with QSI 683wsg camera on EQ8 mount. Exposures through filters with 2 x 2 binning as follows: Astrodon 3-nm Hα for 10-hours total and Astrodon 3-nm OIII for 18-hours total. Acquisition and processing software used: Nebulosity 4, PHD2, PixInsight, Lightroom and Photoshop. Imaged from suburban Sydney.

“This faint Oxygen III nebula is catalogued as Sharpless 308 in the constellation of Canis Major and is commonly called the Gourd Nebula, but I am one of those people who see a Porpoise first, or I am fonder of porpoises than gourds anyway. The nebula is classified as a Wolf-Rayet bubble and originates from the star located close to the centre of the frame.

“When I was a young boy in the early 1970s, my stepfather took me to see a movie at a drive-in theater in the country. At the end of the movie, I stepped outside the car and looked up to behold the summer Milky Way overhead. This was the first time I had seen the Milky Way from a dark location and I was overwhelmed with awe. To this day, I still experience awe, swooning at the beauty of a starry night when I am lucky enough to camp somewhere truly dark.

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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.

Reprocess of The Pillars of Creation by Instagram user Gregory Thompson. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16 or NGC-6611) is a diffuse emission nebula and open cluster that is home to the finger-like “Pillars of Creation” star-forming region. Ultraviolet light emitted by the young, giant blue stars in the nebula causes the gasses in the nebula to glow. The “Pillars” are actually cold accumulations of dust and gas that are silhouetted by the background glow.
Exposures at ISO 800 and 1600, 174 x 60″/45″ because of wind and low elevation.
Tele Vue-NP127is APO refractor with Canon EOS 7D Mark II DSLR riding on iOptron CEM60EC mount. Software: BackyardEOS, DeepSkyStacker, StarTools, and Corel Photo-Paint X5.

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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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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Tele Vue APO Design and Build “Secrets”

Over the years, we’ve seen conversational topics in online amateur circles that repeatedly crop up concerning the definition of apochromatic refractor, triplet vs. doublet design, and how glass designation might define performance. We expect these questions to continue to appear as new amateurs discover the hobby. So bookmark this blog post because here you’ll find notes on Tele Vue’s philosophy and build practices concerning our telescope line of 100% APO refractors.

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NP127is: Imaging the Skies Over Taos, NM

NGC7000 North America Nebula-NP127is by AstroBin user Jerry Macon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tele Vue-NP127is flat-field, APO refractor with ZWO ASI128MC Pro full-frame color CMOS camera with 2″ Astronomik L-2 UV-IR Block filter. Exposure 59 x 240″ for a total of 3.9-hours. Mount:Paramount MEII with Absolute Encoders. Software:Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight 1.8.

We’ve noticed some nice full-color and RGB deep-sky images made by Jerry Macon using our Tele Vue-NP127is telescope. They’re all taken from his private Dark Star Observatory in Taos, New Mexico. His image of the expansive North America Nebula (NGC 7000 – above) displays how the deep red light of Hydrogen-α dominates this emission nebula (an ionized cloud of hydrogen gas about 3° across). A feature of this nebula is the “Cygnus Wall” section at the bottom, that includes “Mexico” and “Central America.” This feature is a dense star-forming region of dust and gas that is often imaged alone without the rest of the nebula.

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From Tom’s Driveway: Tele Vue-NP127is & Tele Vue-85 Simultaneous Imaging!

Cygnus Wall LRGBSHO (crop of NGC 7000) by Astro Bin user Tom Peter. Copyright Tom Peter. Used by permission. NP127is and TV-85 combined exposures of 22.2-hours. Click for details.

We noticed some unique images on AstroBin.com employing our Tele Vue-NP127is and Tele Vue-85 scopes to simultaneously image the same target. The images from the two scopes were combined to create the final image — with fantastic results! All the image locations are given as “Tom’s Driveway” in Terre Haute, IN. Intrigued, we contacted the imager (“Astrovetteman”) to learn how he settled on this technique for many of his images. So we turn over our blog this week to astrophotographer Tom Peter and his dual-scope driveway setup.

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Jeff Bennett’s Tele Vue-NP127is Images

The Rosette Nebula by AstroBin user Jeff Bennett. Copyright by Jeff Bennett. Tele Vue TV-NP127is with QSI 683 wsg-8 camera using Astronomik Ha 6nm and RGB filters for 25×300″ (2.1-hrs) total on November 27, 2017.

This year we received a phone call from Jeff Bennett with some questions about his new TV-NP127is scope. He’d only been using it since the fall of 2017 but was very enthusiastic and told us he’d tried other scopes, but the NP127is was the best he’d ever used. We viewed his astrobin.com page and we were impressed with his initial results. So, we asked him to tell us why he chose the NP127is for astro imaging and he told us in his own words.

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Tele Vue NEW for 2018: NP101is, NP127is OTA Accessory Packages, SCT Rich Field Kits, & Diagonal Packages

All Tele Vue telescopes now come standard as optical tube assemblies (OTA) that can be turned into “complete” units with optional, customized accessory packages. The package costs can be substantially less than pricing each component individually. In a prior installment we discussed the packages for the Tele Vue-60, Tele Vue-76, and Tele Vue-85 scopes. Here we’ll take up the multi-purpose Imaging System, or “is,” scopes and their associated accessory packages.

Tele Vue NP127is and NP101is scopes and accessories we’ve turned into packages for visual observing.

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