F15Rules

9 minutes ago, Moonlit Knight said:

https://astro-baby.com/reviews/TAL 100RS/TAL 100RS Review.htm

That was actually my scope..

I sold it to Mel (AstroBaby), and actually delivered it to her while on a business trip😊.

Dave

9 minutes ago, Moonlit Knight said:

 

I will willingly confess to having owned at least 7 Tal 100's in my time..the fact that I don't now own one may suggest its own conclusion - ie that they weren't very good..but the truth is more complicated than that..

You have to go back in time to understand the context of those scopes. In the late 1980s and early 90s the two most common (and aspirational) scopes were a 4" refractor and a 6" reflector: indeed the late, great Sir Patrick Moore extolled the virtues of both as being "serious amateur telescopes" and he compared the performance of a good 4" frac and 6" reflector being broadly comparable (I think we would nowadays see this as a bit of a simplistic comparison).

However, he rightly pointed out that a good 6" Newtonian was MUCH more affordable than a decent 4" refractor..and, bear in mind that at that time, a decent 4" refractor meant an achromat of F10 focal length. The aspirational such scope was a Vixen Japan SP102 on SP or GP mount, and in those days you'd have to pay c£700 for a complete outfit, whereas you could probably get a good 6 " newt and mount for half that or less.

So, when, in the mid-late 1990s a new, smart looking 4" (100mm) F10 achromat from Russia's TAL brand appeared, with a decent optical system, good manual equatorial mount, good diagonal and finder, and 2 or 3 decent plossls, and all stored in a massive Siberian Pine crate (fondly known by buyers as The Coffin), and all for £249, people including me sat up and took notice.

I bought my first 100R in 1999, from an early online seller, Warehouse Express, for that price, and had it delivered to my work office. The Coffin was a two man lift, and when I got it home my wife thought I'd put a body in it!!

That scope was not "perfect", but it was solid, had a beautiful objective with gorgeous 💜 coloured coatings, and performed very well. Colour correction on mine at least matched the SP102, as did contrast and sharpness. The TAL certainly had it's quirks, like a ridiculously short focus travel, no more than 40-50 mm if that, but it looked great, worked well, and was affordable.

The later RS version introduced in the early 2000s brought some worthwhile improvements, including a rotatable, 2" capable crayford focuser with MUCH more travel. The lens had different (to me, less attractive) coatings with similar performance (I always felt that the earlier 100R objective was better than the RS), and the dewshield changed from a short, metal one to a longer plastic one (in fact some later 100R's came with the new plastic dewshield).

I owned 2 100R's and at least 5 RS's over the first decade of the 2000's and all of them performed well. All of the RS's came as tube only with  accessories, butno mount or tripod.

I would buy one, use it for a while, sell it, and soon after miss it and buy another..I got 2 of my RS's from Astro Boot (remember them?) for a good price.

A couple were cosmetically damaged on receipt, and I always put this down to the tortuous 3000+ miles road trip they had to endure from the TAL factory in Novosibirsk, Siberia. It's actually only due to the coffins they used originally that the 100Rs seemed to weather the journey better than the later ones.

Of course, times moved on, the ED revolution came in in a big way in the second decade of the 2000s, and Synta made a huge mark on the European refractor market with their SW 100ED and also a Celestron branded version with different cosmetics but the same optics.. and WHAT optics!

They very wisely threw most of their investment into producing top class F9 100mm ED optics and slotting them into mediocre but workable OTA mechanics. The rest is history, and now there are huge numbers of 4" refractors both achro and apo, from F7-F10, all over the world. 

TAL did have their QC challenges, but fundamentally they were a small cog in a huge Russian Optics industry, and frankly, astronomical scopes couldn't earn anything like the return on investment that military and sport optics could..so they faded away..

I can't imagine why anyone who already has an ED100 of any brand would want to pair it up with an F10 achromat..it would be setting the achro up to fail..

HOWEVER..on it's own terms , and taken for what is is, a TAL 100RS (or for me, better still, a 100R with the liquid purple lens), at a sensible price on the used market, can still deliver many hours of most enjoyable observing sessions, on Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, doubles and clusters...for both seasoned amateurs and beginners alike..and, because it doesn't cost too much, you don't have to be precious about it, or worry that it might get damaged.

They were a major part of my own observing journey, and I will always recall them very fondly. 

If you're in the market for a no fuss, no frills, cheap but optically very good achromat, seek one out!🤗👍.

Earlier Tal 100R on TAL EQ mount (can also be used in altaz mode) and quality wooden tripod.

Later 100RS objective (left) and earlier 100R objective (right)..now, which do YOU like the look of best??😁

Dave

Got the FS128 out tonight after a few hours late afternoon sunshine. The atmosphere was murky but I just wanted to get outside with the binoviewers and my new eyepiece pairs..

I went straight to the Trapezium in Orion with my new Maxbright II Binoviewers and my new pairs of Tak Abbe orthos 12.5mm and BGO 18mm. Contrast and sharpness was superb, despite the murk. 

Soon after setting up everything just started to steam up and within 40 minutes or less I gave up.

Feeling both elated and frustrated at the same time, but I've seen enough to know that this binoviewer is by some margin the best I have owned, and on a decent night I think it will be an amazing piece of kit..

Dave

53 minutes ago, Stu said:

I think it was Scrumpy night during Fresher’s week at Uni 35 years ago that made me decide that Cider does not agree with me! 🤢🤣

I had an unfortunate night with mates when I was 17 in the 1970s..never having drunk cider before, I had 5 pints of draught Strongbow in 90 minutes at our local in Coventry, The Dive (Lady Godiva), and had to be driven home (fortunately my parent were away on holiday!) by a mate who kept saying "don't chuck up in my car, whatever you do!!"..

I did have to stop at a layby, but managed not to mess up his precious Ford Corsair!!

I did learn a lesson and have never drunk more than one pint of cider in an evening, ever since!🤦

And these days I much prefer a nice Craft beer pint or an IPA👍.

Dave

17 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

A simple way to test whether the EPs where at fault is to rotate them in the binoviewer, which is easier than rotating the whole binoviewer. I have never noticed any difference in sharpness between top and bottom and left and right edges (until I started using varifocal glasses, obviously). EPs are generally very close to perfectly rotationally symmetric, so I would not expect any difference between the north-south and east-west edges

I refer you to my last post of last Thursday 3 or 4 posts back..🙂

Dave

You too, Paul👍.

I believe Mr Hezzlewood is doing a talk on Planetary Sketching??🤭😂😂.

Joking apart, it will be great to see you again and to meet Mike😉

Dave

I too am hoping to go, for the morning at least..I'll be the ugly old one following along after Steve 😂

@Saganite

Dave

Yes in Taunton now (Wife’s hometown), though don’t think I’ll ever be a true Somerset boy as I can’t stand cider 😂.

On 10/02/2023 at 07:09, Stu said:

I’m with you on the cider! 🤣🤣

Sounds good!

So, neither Craig or Stu can claim to be "Somerset Inciders"??

Sorry. 

Dave

I owned one of these for a short time, being tempted by the (N)LVW moniker. 

Having owned most of the LVW range in the past (including the quite superb LVW 22mm), I was intrigued to try one. But a proper LVW it ain't! 

I didn't like the ergonomics at all, and the performance was IMHO mediocre at best.

Vixen also made a 30mm Version of the LV line, and if you can find one (they are quite old now), I think that would be a better choice than this one.

But there are other more capable modern eyepieces available, such as the ES 24mm or 34mm 68 degree (oddly I didn't get on with the ES28 mm though 🤔).

Dave

5 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

Beautiful Dave! And well done on finding the BGOs! Both pairs will be superb in the Maxbright. 

Thanks Mark🙂

I count myself very fortunate..I found one BGO for sale and grabbed it..having tried it in the maxbright by itself just to test it, I was amazed (and reminded, as I once had a full set of these) at just how razor sharp these eyepieces are. 

So I advertised for another, and eventually managed to get one..both are immaculate.

I also found a pair of the Tak 12.5mm Abbe's being sold together, so I sacrificed my Morpheus 17.5mm to help fund them.

Of course it's been cloudy since the BGO and Tak pairs arrived, but I am confident that both will work wonderfully with the MBII's..the relatively narrow views don't bother me because the field stops on both BGO and Taks are SO sharp, and the views sharp from edge to edge; I bought these to use at highish magnification on Lunar, Planets and Double stars, and for this purpose they should be perfect👍.

Dave

Excellent. Clearly a lot of work went into this review and it was an interesting and informative read on all counts. Thank you.

Dave

27 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

And when you do get them out to test them you enter the observer's paradox where you look through them for 5 minutes and 4 hours passes.

TBH, right now I'd settle for literally a 5 minute look through them at night!🤦🤭

Dave

29 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

On the other handle, Dave, at least you can spend the next few evenings admiring them 😊

I've got to handle it to you, Jeremy, you know how to give a guy a lift!😊

1 hour ago, jock1958 said:

Well that’s you well and truly sorted now Dave!! looking forward to some first light feedback on what must be a visual observers dream come true 👍

Thanks Iain👍.

Of course the arrival of these little beauties brought with them thick cloud, so it could be next week at least til first light. But I'm sure it will be worth waiting for..

Dave

I've always liked our postie, "Tim", he's a lovely chap..

But after this morning, I absolutely love him!!😂😂..

..a welcome to my home gift for my new Maxbright II binoviewers 👍

Dave

Well, today I set up the binoviewers in daylight and focused the scope on our nearby church tower steeple 

I just used a 26mm plossl eyepiece in the left hand eyepiece holder (my better eye these days) and panned left to right across the field. By chance, and very helpfully, there was a Collared Dove sitting on the top of the steeple, and as I panned left to right the image of the dove stayed sharp virtually to the edge of the fov.

Next, without changing the orientation of the binos, I panned up and down, or north-south, and saw a definite blurring of the image of the dove at each extreme north or south point..not huge but there..

I then, as per @Louis Ds advice, rotated the binoviewer by 90 degrees, so that the former left right horizontal view was now viewed as effectively an "up-down" view. The image of the dove again stayed sharp virtually to the edge. I then rotated the binoviewer to the opposite side, ie 180 degrees from the first rotation, and again the image stayed sharp.

From the above results, I can only conclude that the blurring I see when panning up and down (north-south), but don't see when panning right to left (east-west) can only be as a result of a fault in my eyes.

I am making an eye test appointment tomorrow for sometime in the next 10 days. I'll report back what the findings are!😏

Dave

I'm not in the least worried 😊. Why? Because it'll never ha

😂

4 minutes ago, Stu said:

Pretty sure that’s @Louis D

+1 for that, it's got to be Louis😊

57 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Did you rotate you whole head 90 degrees to either side to eliminate the possibility it was something to do with your eyes or perhaps even your visual processing complex?  That way, you're looking side to side along both axes of the eyepiece/diagonal/telescope combination.

No, I didn't Louis, but good idea, I will try it..as mentioned above, I do think it must be something to do with my eyes, not my equipment..🥴

Thanks for all the replies so far🙂.

I hadn't considered astigmatism in my own eye (s)..

I am sure it's not the binoviewers as I've noticed the effect before I acquired these, both with cyclops viewing and with my previous binoviewers. I've also noticed this with ordinary binoculars, of which I have 3 pairs, all of known good optical quality.

I don't think it's the diagonal. My main one is a Baader Zeiss BBHS prism and I have also an excellent Astro Tech 2" mirror diagonal.

Don mentioned possible "sag" due to weight..I will look at this as I do use a couple of heavy eyepieces (Axiom LX 23 & 31mm), but both are currently decloaked so much less heavy now.

My binoviewers have some heft, too, but not excessive at all.

My FS128 has a very solid focuser: although I can occasionally see a small amount of image shift at high powers, I don't think the focuser is to blame for the above phenomenon, and again, I still see the "north/south" vs "east/west" difference even with binoculars and a range of eyepieces.

All this makes me think the fault has to be with my own eye(s)..

I do know that my right eye (my natural bias is to my right side) has deteriorated noticeably in the past 5 years or so, to the point that I had to train myself to use my better, left eye to be my main observing eye. I don't recall testing this perceived discrepancy one eye at a time, so I shall check that out. I am due an eye test soon, so I will discuss this with the optician also.

Finally, one thing that I am very sure of is that with my new binoviewers my good left eye helps to lift the perceived performance of my poorer right eye. I am certain of this. Viewing Mars the other night, the view through both eyes was much clearer, more comfortable and more satisfying than the cyclops view through either eye - no doubt about it.

The new Maxbright IIs are excellent..but that's another story..😊

Dave

5 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Slow night Dave? 😊

No, Jeremy, just trying to get a handle on this phenomenon..😉

One of the many measures of an eyepiece's attributes that we visual observers often consider is a "must have" when deciding whether or not to buy it, is "is it sharp to the edge?"

I myself have often looked for, or commented upon, the "sharpness out to the edge" that an eyepiece delivers.

In my own case, and perhaps because I use a driven equatorial mount, I have always looked at this horizontally, ie panning from east to west and vice versa..

But what about from north to south and south to north?

I've recently been looking at different eyepieces which might be suitable for using with my new Maxbright II binoviewer, and during a session the other night, I was panning left to right and vice versa and estimating how far (as a percentage) from the centre of the field of view, a given eyepiece pair stayed sharp. 

I find that using the Trapezium in M42 works well, as the Trap presents a fairly small trapezoidal shapes asterism of 4 fairly faint mag 5-6 stars, which is very distinctive: by panning slowly out from the centre, it is very obvious at which point the Trap's shape begins to distort (or whether it stays sharp). 

For example, using a pair of older Meade 26mm MIJ wide angle Pseudo Masuyama eps, the view didn't start to become less sharp until about 95% from the centre - an excellent result in my F8 refractor.

By comparison, a pair of William Optics clone 20mm wide angle eps began to soften the Trap's appearance from about 80% from the edge..quite good, but noticeably less good than the Meade pair.

Now, I decided next to check for sharpness to the edge, going north to south and vice versa. The result was the same, in that the Meade pair were sharper than the WO clones moving from the centre to the edge.. however, I did notice that the "sharpness from centre to edge" for both pair of eyepieces was significantly worse moving North to South than for moving East to West..sharpness north to south definitely seems less good than east to west.

So..my question is, why does it seem that edge to edge performance is less for north to south than it is from east to west?

I have found this to be true using single eps as well as pairs..so it's not the Binoviewers that are causing this effect..

Discuss please?🤔😊

Dave

50 minutes ago, Trevor N said:

Agree with that Steve. I like the ED100 and having just returned from astrofest today and seen the modern refractors ( and particularly their prices !!) I think my ED100 will be with me for awhile yet !!

Hi Trevor,

I think you'd have to spend a lot of money to get a better ED 100 lens. If you intend to keep the scope, why not consider upgrading the focuser?

FLO have this one:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-focusers/astro-essentials-2-dual-speed-crayford-focuser-for-sky-watcher-refractor-telescopes.html

It fits the SW ED100 which is virtually identical to your scope. This is FLO's  own branded version of an upgraded two speed focuser that has been around for years..I installed one on my Celestron ED100 and it transformed the enjoyment of using the scope, and it also enhanced the resale value when the time came to move it on.

You will have 3 retaining screws on your it's tube at the focuser end, spaced at 120 degrees apart..these attach your focuser to the OTA tube.

Simply remove these screws carefully, and you will be able to just pull the old focuser out..then you simply push in the new focuser, rotate to be in line with your finder scope to the left of too centre, and tighten up the screws..job done!😊

I'm 99.9% sure this will fit your scope..in the extremely unlikely event that it didn't fit, FLO are superb at allowing returns and full refund👍.

HTH,

Dave

A nice approach..I wish you a successful show!😊

Dave

24 minutes ago, Skyline said:

What happens if someone trips on one of your scopes ?

You receive a bill for the damage caused?

Dave