Jupiter and the Tal

[Roy Challen]

Hi All,

Bought a new (second hand) scope this week, wanted to tell you all about it but not 100% sure which category it should go in - it's not exactly a review - so Mods, feel free to move it to a more appropriate forum if necessary.

First Light with the Tal 100RS

Recently it became apparent that I do not have the time to do astrophotography to the standard I would like. The fact that I moved house right into the middle of a town, thus having to contend with rampant light pollution, also didn’t help. In addition, I found I was spending an increasingly unpleasant amount of time looking at a computer or camera screen instead of the stars but with a 70mm ED refractor, even visual astronomy was limited.

So, after some research and decision making I bought a second hand Tal 100RS with the intention of doing just Lunar, Solar and Planetary astronomy. I found the scope at a good price – it wasn’t in the most perfect condition but the lens was clean and the owner assured me that the physical defects in no way affected the optical performance. A few days later it was mine. And the next night was first light!

I don’t really want to go into much detail about chromatic aberrations, contrast, sharpness etc. as these have been well dealt with on many threads on SGL. We all know they’re good telescopes. I do want to tell you about my experience with the Tal.

I lined up the finder scope with the main scope by focusing on the top of a church spire – it wasn’t miles away, next door in fact – and it was only a rough alignment. In the evening (I let the scope cool down for quite a while) I did a rough polar alignment, pointed the scope roughly in the direction of Jupiter, and there it was right in the cross hairs of the finder. Then looking through the telescope, it was dead centre in the field of my 24mm MaxVision. It literally took 1 minute to set up and find Jupiter - great start!

Now, to the observing. I used my two MaxVisions and 4 Tele Vue Plossls. Just quickly then – all eyepieces were sharp for at least 90% of the field of view, contrast was good in all eyepieces – maybe a touch better in the TV’s but you would be hard pressed to tell. Colour correction slightly better in the TV’s, but again, hard to tell. Put it this way – I was well impressed with all my eyepieces.

What I can tell you is that I saw the Great Red Spot for the first time ever – and this was from a light polluted, ever so slightly cloudy, poor seeing location. Wow! I spent the next two and a half hours watching Jupiter’s rotation carry the GRS out of visibility, as well as Europa and Ganymede making their way round their orbits of the parent planet. It was so interesting to watch change occurring millions of miles away in real time.

Viewing the whole scene through the 24mm MV was just about the most relaxing thing I’ve ever done during an astronomical observing session. Centering Jupiter, I could go inside, make a cup of tea, come back out and it would still be within 30% of the centre of field. Low magnification wide field viewing of planets isn’t often mentioned, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was waiting for the Moon to rise, but the clouds weren’t so I packed up (taking all of 3 or 4 mins) and went inside. The whole experience was just so easy – no cables, no power packs, no goto but the main feeling I want to try to convey about this session is the sense of wonder at eyeballing the skies I got. When I would show people my astro images they would say wow, but I didn’t because ultimately I wasn’t happy with them. I wanted the wow factor too. With the Tal that is what I got – and then some!

[jabeoo1]

Nice review Roy.  

How many KG is this scope ?

[estwing]

Great read thanks for sharing...

[Qualia]

Lovely report, Roy and welcome to the Tal club By way of interest what magnification did you find most useful for observing Jupiter? I tend to go no further than 7mm on most. 

[Stu]

Great report Roy. Sounds like an ideal choice for you. TALs have a great reputation and very hard to beat at the price.

I love a nice simple setup too with as few cables/complexity as possible. Nothing like spending a relaxed few hours observing Jupiter.

Enjoy your scope.

[Roy Challen]

Thanks for the feedback! Apparently the Tal weighs about 5kg with finder and 24mm MV- at least that's what my bathroom scales say(they also say I weigh 85kg )

Max mag for me= 125,but I found the views pleasing with an 11mm plossl. I did try a 2x Barlow but it made things worse

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

Good report Roy,and welcome to the club!

[Alkaid]

Nice report Roy!

[nightfisher]

Roy, thats a great write up and mirrors my feelings regarding the Tal 100

[odeon]

Great read. Thank you.

What made the read especially interesting is that tonight I had a similar experience. I tried out my new Skywatcher 150p for the first time, targeting Jupiter. Not the greatest seeing tonight, but with a 10mm I could clearly see some of the cloud bands and the four Galilean moons. What a lovely, lovely sight.

Thinking I want to go outside again.