Televu Delite unboxing and 1st light

[baggywrinkle]

The TV ep's and the Powermate arrived yesterday, so here are some images of the unboxing and a bit of a 1st light report.

Never having owned or bought Televu it was a pleasant surpise to see how well packed they were, bagged and bubble wrapped with instructions and a little stick on lable which I am not sure what to do with.

Once out of the box the first impression s is how well made they are, solid and well finsished, bigger than I expected but not overly so. All have with firm fitting end caps and unlike my experience with Baader ep's when you take off the viewing end cap it does not remove the rubber fold up guard with it. The coatings all looked good and the lenses were pristine. All in all they screamed quality.

Instructions are provided, the first time I have seen instructions included with ep's. They give an intro into various terms associated with an ep and how to get the best out of these, also how to use the pull up and lockable eye cups to get the best of the 20mm eye relief that the Delite design has. The Powermate was simlarly packed and had instructions how to use it and a description of why it differs from other Barlow lenses.

Unblievably the skies parted last night for a while and I quickly set up my short FL Altair astro 70mmED on a SW AZ Goto mount I normally use with a Mak127.

I decided on the ED70 as there were no planets up last night but some good cluster and DSO to try the EP's out on.

First the Pleiades starting off with the 18.2mm then the 11 followed by the 7. I did not try the Powermate. Wow! such a difference between these and other ep's I have. The 18.2 obviously gave the best FOV but in all of them the view was of pin sharp stars all the way across, the contrast was fantastic and the colours held a lovely blue tinge. I compared against the 24mm Baader I have , the Baader is good but the contrast is not as good and sharp.

Next was the Adromeda Galaxy. Again another wow moment. Best in the 18.2 but still good in the 7mm, it seemed to stand out better against the dark background better than I had seen before, less of a faint fuzzy more of a bright fuzzy.

Alberio was next, easily split and showing the colour in all 3. The background stars stood out nicely and again pin sharp.

Next test will be on the Moon and some planets.

Anything I do not like? No apart from the name, sounds to much like a Buggs Bunny Acme type name. Improvements? Yes, can they make a 22 or a 24mm version? I would buy it straight away.

I paid $250 each for these and no shipping charges as a colleague brought them across, so they worked out at £166 each, a good saving on the UK price.

[baggywrinkle]

Excuse me spelling Tele Vue wrong.....keep thinking Acme and Buggs Bunny.....

[Knighty2112]

Thanks for the quick review. Looking to get a good 2" EP next April/May time, after I get a 2"/1.25" dielectric diagonal to go in my scope to in Feb/March. Heard good things about the Tele Vue ranges of EP's, so may splash out on an 18mm EP to start with.

[rockystar]

Very nice, they look lovely - and a good price you paid for them :-)

[Floater]

Excuse me spelling Tele Vue wrong.....keep thinking Acme and Buggs Bunny.....

Your delight with the Delites is palpable - and it's always good to see folks pick up on spelling errors ...

Now maybe have a look at Albireo, too? :evil:

(Forgive me, please. It's just that this is a long-running crusade of mine.   Enjoy the views.)

[John]

Very nice 1st light report

Excuse me spelling Tele Vue wrong.....keep thinking Acme and Buggs Bunny.....

When I first saw the name "Tele Vue" in a small advert at the back of a USA astronomy magazine in the 1980's I thought just the same - who would want to own products with such a cheesy brand name ?. They can't be much good .....

I've owned dozens of their eyepieces since then ........ how wrong I was !

I'm sure you will get loads more enjoyment from them. If they bring out a 4mm and 3mm in the Delite range I'd be interested in them as possible replacements for the TV Radian's that currently occupy those spots in my eyepiece case.

[baggywrinkle]

Your delight with the Delites is palpable - and it's always good to see folks pick up on spelling errors ...

Now maybe have a look at Albireo, too? :evil:

(Forgive me, please. It's just that this is a long-running crusade of mine.   Enjoy the views.)

Spolling iz not mi strung point.......

We used to say in the RN, 'Yesterday I couldnt spell engineer...now I are one!'

[Saganite]

Well done and congratulations, £166, WOW; I thought I had done well getting the 7mm for £199.

The 18.2mm is definitely on the list.

[Mak the Night]

They look brilliant. Last week my 10mm Delos came, so I'm equally TV ecstatic! I put the TeleVue decals on my EP cases (I have three) as I can't think what else to do with them lol. I believe Al Nagler used the name 'TeleVue' originally as he started a company making magnifying screens for televisions in the 1970's. 

Well, there are TeleVue EP's inside it. 

[alan potts]

Remarkable, spend all that money, receive delivery and then get to use them, who did you palm all the bad weather on .

Nice review and pictures BW, you can tell you were pleased and there is no doubt the build on Tv's is of the highest order. I may well be tempted if they make something a bit shorter than 7mm. or a 15mm, which would be nice as a Meade SC 12inch planetary eyepiece.

Alan

[Moonshane]

They were a lot lighter than I expected. I suppose there's a clue in the name! Really excellent though.

[Highburymark]

Nice report - congratulations on the new eyepieces, and great that the sky gods gave you a fine evening for it. Last night gave me the sharpest views of the Taurus clusters I've ever had from my light drenched location in London. Really showed that there are some deep sky targets still worth observing from the city.

As Floater said, your joy using the new EPs for the first time is clear. What's wonderful is that you will get the same feeling over and over, every time you use them. Look forward to seeing some more reports as you go along.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Congrats on the new eyepieces, and the first light

[baggywrinkle]

Was out both last night and this morning. Clear skies at 4 a.m. so before work I quickly set up the Mak127 to have look at Jupiter. I simply did not have enough time for both Venus and Mars.

On 18.2mm Jupiter was a fantastic sight, well defined equatorial bands and a good hint of the southern bands. 7mm was too much on the Mak, it had not cooled down properly, but the 11mm gave a stunning view and the bands stood out I was able to get good focus despite the thermals.

Yesterday evening I set up the 6'' Bresser refractor alongside my AA 70ED on a Sky T mount. If the Pleiades were good on the 70ED with the light gathering of the Bresser they were fantastic. I compared the 18mm against a fixed 24mm Baader, not quite a fair comparison and my opinion of the Baader range is that they are still very good eye pieces. The 18mm obviously delivers a narrower field of view but it is sharp all the way across and the contrast is great.

I have yet to try them with the Powermate, my concern there is that the combination of Powermate and a Delite will make for a very long optical assembly.

[John]

That all sounds very positive

The Powermate's do create quite a long assembly when combined with a reasonably sized eyepiece but as long as your diagonals are of decent build quality they should be OK.

I've used the 2" 2x Powermate with my Ethos eyepieces which in the diagonals of my refractors and they have worked fine. I've needed to adjuse the balance point of the refractors at times though, to allow for nearly 3lbs on the back end of the scope !

[Mak the Night]

I had first light with my 10mm Delos last night. Great view of the Trapezium and M42. It was interesting to compare the 24mm Panoptic with it.

I find that I can easily put a 19mm Panoptic or a 16mm T5 Nagler into the 2.5x Powermate and it will work well on a 102mm Mak. Although the 24mm Pan would probably be OK. The weight is concentrated vertically and is less than the 650g or so of my binoviewer equipped with 15mm TeleVue Plossls. It can noticeably shift the balance in a small Mak but I can manage it, and I can only effectively use my left arm.

[baggywrinkle]

If it is clear tonight I will give tha Powermate a go...

[Don Pensack]

DeLite, a take-off on the name "Delos Lite".

And, a nod to the designer, Paul Dellechiaie.

Not to mention, an apt description of the viewing experience.

I tested these at a star party and bought all 3, and I'm looking forward to the shorter focal lengths, due in early 2016.

They kind of resemble "widefield orthos" in terms of contrast.

The 2.5x PowerMate yields equivalent focal lengths of 7.3, 4.4, and 2.8mm, for a 18.2--11--7.3--7--4.4--2.8 set

It might have been more useful to get the 2X barlow, which would have yielded 9.1mm, 5.5mm, and 3.5mm for a 18.2--11--9.1--7--5.5--3.5 set. 

The only thing you need on top of that is a 26mm Nagler for low powers (or a 24mm Panoptic on a lower budget).

[baggywrinkle]

Hi Don, thanks for the heads up on how the name was derived..

Just ordered the special T ring needed for the Powermate to be used with a DSLR. As I said in that post, for the T ring price I hope it comes diamente encrusted and made of platinum......

[alan potts]

They were a lot lighter than I expected. I suppose there's a clue in the name! Really excellent though.

I bet his wallet is lighter now as well, they look lovely though.

[baggywrinkle]

My T ring adapter arrived yesterday. Not diamante encrusted nor in platinum, but it was very well packed and again came with some destructions sorry instructions. I am impressed by Televue in their approach to selling even if I am less impressed with UK pricing.

[baggywrinkle]

Spent yesterday trying a few things and finding out about some of the limits on these ep's.

Below is an image of my solar observing set up, PST on one arm an AA ED70 with a Herschel wedge on the other.

I had no trouble using the Delite range on the ED70 and wedge, perfect focus achievable and I also got to use the Powermate. There was a very good sunspot yesterday, shaped rather like an Ace of Spades. All 3 gave good viewing.

However the three did not work with the PST. There was just not enough focus. So I went back to using the Celstron 9mm Excel.

In the eveninf I had the Mak 127 out and used all 3 with the Powermate on the Moon. Great views, sharp across the whole field of view. I did have to drop in a Moon filter as it was very very bright. The Powermate was good with the 18mm but the viewing caused problems with the 7mm, the 11 was just about acceptable.

[YKSE]

However the three did not work with the PST. There was just not enough focus.

Are you running out of outwards focus? An extension tube about 10mm should get them in focus in PST, or simply just not fully insert them into the focuser.

[John]

The Delite's, in common with many Tele Vue eyepieces, reach their focal point around 8-10mm further out than most other eyepieces. They are part of what Tele Vue call their parfocal groub "B".

The Powermate should not change the focal position. Maybe the Powermate + shorter focal length Delite combo was overpowering the scope on the Moon with the Mak ? - it's already a pretty long focal length scope.

As YKSE says, a short extension tube or even par-focalisation rings, might help with the PST.

[baggywrinkle]

Thanks YKSE & John....when the Sun re-appears I will try that.