First light with my Ranger… it’s a damn conspiracy!

[Chaz2b]

This is my first time in ages I’ve been out to see..well, anything! The moon is first quarter and there’s a few stars, but then the jets are also out leaving big, fat contrails!

It’s bad enough with the council fitting loads of massive construction lights to our flats!

This is surely a conspiracy against me! Just because I’ve spent a few lately, the clouds stuck around longer than usual bringing with them more than enough rain, now, contrails!.

I guess it was only around eight minutes of viewing, but I couldn’t take it any longer, so I will continue to stay indoors and look out of my windows.

As for the Ranger, she’s a beaut! Only occasionally letting me know she’s not an APO at the moons outer edges only when I viewed at the delites edges, I knew that from having a Pronto so I’m not bothered.

Lets hope it can only get better, I’ve still the TV85, Vixen 80 binos, apogee binos…..to first light properly.

chaz

[RT65CB-SWL]

I have owned my TeleVue Ranger since mid/late 1998. I would drool over the TeleVue adverts in S&T and say to myself: “One of these days, I am going to get one!” - Twenty plus years later, it is still in regular use for astronomical and terrestrial viewing. 🔭

Edited April 14 by RT65CB-SWL

[Chaz2b]

Can’t help myself, I just love Televue products😍

Tell me, you have both the Tv zoom and a SvBONY zoom, what is the difference in viewing please? It looks very much like SvBONY has copied the nagler zoom, in style anyway.

chaz

 

[Highburymark]

Fantastic! I love TeleVue scopes too - so any chance of a pic or two?

The SVBony zoom is very close to the Nagler, except really short eye relief at 3mm and 4mm (at least to my eyes), so I can’t see the field stop without touching the lens with my eye lashes. And it is sharpest in the middle of the range 4-7mm or so. So just a touch less sharp at 8mm (where my Baader zoom is slightly sharper, I was surprised by that), and at 3mm. 
It’s an incredibly good deal for the price. The main issue for me as a good all round planetary zoom is its lack of high-mag eye relief.

[Chaz2b]

Sure. The first was on the Manfrotto trigger grip, but when you touched it it jitters toooo much so I changed it for the Manfrotto 029, much better.

chaz

[NGC 1502]

Your findings are very similar to my Pronto with the same objective.  Some years ago I bought a second hand ED80 and initially it became my favourite small refractor.  The ED80 does have better glass……however that’s definitely not the whole story…….

What frustrated me with the ED80 is collimation is close but not spot on. At high power on doubles the first diffraction ring is not concentric with the Airy disk. That might not bother some, but it bothers the heck out of me😳. I  did try loosening the 3 focuser to tube screws and “jiggling” to attempt better collimation, but without success. The problem must be within the mass produced objective.

The conclusion is….the Pronto is put together with care and attention. At high power on doubles the clean and well defined Airy disk sits perfectly within the first diffraction ring…..sooo beautiful to behold.  A great example of that at this time of year is Izar in Bootes…..the star colours are well seen too….

The Pronto remains my favourite small refractor, sets up in a jiffy for grabbing a gap in the cloud cover.

Ed.

[Chaz2b]

Oh!please stop it! I sold my pronto and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s not top notch optics but still a damn well built scope that is as good to look at as to look through.

I’ ve yet to have a decent viewing with any of my scopes, I even have a brand new Newtonian daring me to haul it outside.

My main aims for this year is to build up an eyepiece collection to set me into retirement. There’s not much more I could want in terms of refractors, maybe a Tak fs102 but I’ll never be able to afford that even with a pension or three!

So a nagler zoom, a Delos or two but a 9mm delite is a must for planets.

I have a pair of 18.2 delites plus a tv 3x barlow but I fear that would be a bit too much power so will look for a tv 2x barlow, the skies round here aren’t the best, I will need to venture over to Exmoor where there’s proper dark skies.

In the mean time, the Ranger is a great spotting scope.🤩

chaz

 

[NGC 1502]

23 minutes ago, Chaz2b said:

Oh!please stop it! I sold my pronto and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s not top notch optics but still a damn well built scope that is as good to look at as to look through.

Sorry, didn’t mean to stress you😊.    The Pronto’s 2” focuser is great if you’re a fan of very low power wide field.  On the other hand the Ranger is half the weight so a lighter mount makes for a very portable travel scope. And with a 24 Panoptic you get 20x and well over 3 degrees field of view, adequate for most!

[RT65CB-SWL]

6 hours ago, Chaz2b said:

Can’t help myself, I just love Televue products😍

Tell me, you have both the Tv zoom and a SvBONY zoom, what is the difference in viewing please? It looks very much like SvBONY has copied the nagler zoom, in style anyway.

chaz

 

I don’t regret buying either. I have not done an in depth comparison or a non-biased opinion between the two. Some of the things that I have noted so far are:

• the SV is a little bit taller than the TV.
• the ‘extra’ lengths… ie 7 and 8mm.
• wider FOV… 56deg. [SV] v 50deg. [TV]
• the twist-grip for changing focal lengths on the SV is about twice the height of the TV - the diameter is about the same.
• the SV twist-grip is ‘smoother’ when changing to other focal lengths than that of the TV.
• build quality… the TV is solid. I can hear slight rattle if I shake the SV. I think other SGL’ers [and astro-forums] have commentated on this issue, but I don’t think it’s going to disintegrate or come apart that easily… unless I do something drastic or stupid to it.
• both are optically very good. I find the relief isn’t to bad either. I wear glasses/spectacles, but not when observing. Some have said the SV & TV planetary zoom e/p’s are a bit tight in that department.
• the SV is about two-thirds the price [or less] than the TV.

Edited April 16 by RT65CB-SWL

[Highburymark]

I bought the SV zoom for £80. The Nagler is over £400! 

[Chaz2b]

Would you believe I had a nagler zoom, sold it! Damn damn....

Unless I find another in a lucky bag, it's the svbony for now.

Chaz

[Chaz2b]

This is getting silly, okay the mounts I’ve placed it on are not ideal for looking up so I’ve had to place it on my AZ-GTI mount, luckily I had 3D printed a dovetail bar last year so it fitted a treat.

The moon is quite high up hence the change of mount and I’m getting a very good view, the optics are really good on this little scope! I’m glad I bought it.

The seeing is quite steady considering there’s blustery winds about, producing very crisp views of the craters and mares even though it’s still day light.

Much to look forward to with this little Ranger, how’s your viewing going then?

chaz