A mini session with Tal

[tom33pr]

It’s been a long time since I was out observing, so it was a great feeling when I went outside last night to check on the weather conditions and found them perfect. It was clear and crisp.

There’ve been some major changes as far as my equipment is concerned due to the fact that my wife is pregnant and our second baby is due in March. Needles to say I’ve had less and less time for observing trying to help around the house as much as I can.

Considering the circumstances I reluctantly decided to sell my beloved 10" DOB and some eyepieces – I’d rather someone actually used it than have it sitting and collecting dust in my bedroom. I also decided to get a smaller, portable, grab-and-go type of scope... - and this is where Stevie [our local astro society chairman] came handy...

Kid... - he started. You can borrow my 4" Tal refractor; way lighter than the DOB, you can keep it on loan free, and it produces great images. Also no guilt attached to keeping (not used) something you spent good few hundred quid on; use it whenever you have a chance and enjoy.

Great, I though. Long story short I collected the refractor last week in our usual observing spot. We planned to do some viewing there, but the cloud turned up and mercilessly ruined our plans.

It was different last night - very clear and great visibility. I set up the scope as per Stevie’s instructions in no time. Think I got it right because the balance on the tube seemed spot on, and the scope was responding as I expected it to. I was ready and decided to quickly hop over the very basic list of objects...

The first thing to do was to align the scope finder which took just a couple of minutes. With the alignment in place I went for the first object – Jupiter. The Celestron 25mm Plossl, produced a great image nicely displaying the planet and the four moons around it. I then switched to the Meade 9.7 and WOW, the image was just amazing (some orange/blueish colouring to it) - the combination of Tal optics and very good seeing. I’m sure I could have done no problem with even higher power – 5 or 6mm with this kind of seeing (already started looking on the ‘UK Astronomy Buy and Sell’ for high power eyepieces ).

Onto the Pleiades. The 25mm just about to managed to fit the cluster in the eyepieces’s FOV (30mm would have probably given a better result), and the view was stunning. Very sharp and clear.

I really wasn’t expecting much from the Orion nebula, thinking – this is a refractor I’m dealing with here, very basic eyepieces plus the city light pollution etc... but I couldn’t be more wrong! It was just great, way better than my first SW 130p and my 10” DOB, - how could that be? Was it down to this particularly clear night? The image was so clear that I couldn’t believe, and the dust cloud seemed so big. I spent good few minutes staring at it mesmerised. Can’t wait to have another look at this nebula – it’s like I’ve rediscovered this object again.

Betelgeuse was the first red giant I had a look at – a distinctive orange/red colour to it. Very sharp and bright indeed. The same for Aldebaran.

Since Stevie advertised the Tal of being more than efficient with displaying double stars I obviously decided to give it a shot and went for Castor first. Again a very sharp image, and no problems with resolving the major companion.

I had been out for around 45 minutes and manged to get a nice look at another couple of binaries when the cloud covered the south-west part of the sky and started rapidly moving towards east. My short session was over.

I’ve read a lot about Tal refractors and they were always only good things. People would swear by them and praise them a lot... Always wanted to know what the deal was. This mini session gave me a taste of what to expect and I’d join all those Tal fans in saying – this crazy looking, Russian scope on a wooden tripod is just amazing.

Can’t wait to use it again.

Thanks Stevie.

[andrew63]

Sounds like the tal is a great match for you. 4'' refractors are very capable as you are no doubt finding out.

andrew

[AndyH]

A great read, Stevie !!

Hope you get a chance of a clear night soon.

[nicnac]

nice write up