TAL no longer available?

[F15Rules]

18 hours ago, AstroAdam said:

No - you're right.  The TAL does show more than the 120ED, but a lot less than I was expecting.  The F/10 of the TAL is great for planetary viewing though, and like I said, the CA is below the threshold where it begins to bother me.

Cheers,

Adam

I'm a bit confused..is the comparison scope a 102mm or 120mm ED? If both were good ED doublets, they should beat the Tal clearly, a 120mm ED by some margin.

Dave

[F15Rules]

On 24/03/2016 at 19:36, spaceboy said:

I remember you having the EVO120 Jules but as with anything that comes out of mass production there is always a chance a lemon made it through QC. TAL are not immune from QC issues either but their bomb proof build quality mean your more likely to get a good one than a bad one. You have to think sky-watcher is every where so the chances of a poor example are higher. I think I have been fortunate in that both my EVO 120 (idiot for selling it) and 150 perform far beyond my expectations. I think that having a collimateable cell is a bonus as you can be sure the optics are always perfectly aligned so if the performance is lacking you know you got a poor example. You also have to consider that f/10 over f/8.33 is going to give the TAL a slight edge regards sharpness but the EVO will always have the advantage of 20mm more light grasp adding to greater if subtle depth.

I'm not knocking the TAL in anyway and there has been many a time I have almost purchased one myself hence why I am aware of 100RS vs EVO120 topics. I'm sure the TAL is hard to beat when pitched up against similar apertures and focal lengths.

I have a mint Evo 120 which I store for my son in law. Most of the time it lives in a wooden box, but I have used it a few times and have twice put it head to head with one of my Tal 100RS scopes (I don't own a Tal any more).

In nearly every respect I preferred the views through the Tal..the Moon and Jupiter to my eyes were sharper and with less CA than the Evo. I don't think F8.3/does the Evo any favours..if it was an F10 (or better yet, F12) the Evo would be a very attractive proposition, to me at least. 

The one area that I felt the Evo beat the Tal was DSO..on M42/and the Double Cluster it showed more detail, a wider field and far more faint stars- altogether a lovely view, and showing that the extra 20mm of aperture really does count on fainter objects.

Dave

Edited March 26, 2016 by F15Rules

[Saganite]

The EVO 120 is an Achromatic, and though good for Lunar, the one I had showed me Jupiter as  a purple blob, so was soon sold. The ED120 is a totally different animal, quite superb in fact, and it was my intention to own one, but the ED100 came up first.

[nightfisher]

22 hours ago, John said:

Does the TAL 100 show less CA than the 102 ED F/7 ?

I'd be suprised if it did. Even the most basic ED glass (FPL-51 or equivalent) paired with a suitable mating element should show around 75% less CA than a crown / flint achromat of the same specs. Even allowing for the focal ratio difference I'd expect an ED102 F/7 to beat a 100mm F/10 achromat on that aspect.

 

I might be totally wrong but i seem to remember that the starwave 102 is not a true ED, i am more than happy to be corrected

[AstroAdam]

4 hours ago, F15Rules said:

I'm a bit confused..is the comparison scope a 102mm or 120mm ED? If both were good ED doublets, they should beat the Tal clearly, a 120mm ED by some margin.

Dave

Sorry - typo - 102ED....!

[nameunknown]

Well, getting the 200k to sit on the eq5 mount was a bit (lot) harder than I thought. Newton-Ellis were great at making an adaptor, but the things you tighten to fit it all together tend to collide (can't give them a name for fear of the "swear filter"), and balancing is a bit of a nightmare. I'm really quite (very) "unhappy" with the supplier, but it's cooling down now and we shall see soon....

P

[nameunknown]

Between cloulds, so far not that bad at all .. but needs a better night

[STF8]

Some TAL scopes are available from BearsOptics Russia Novosibirsk:https://bearoptics.com/

https://bearoptics.com/telescopes-tal/tal100s/