A Personal View by Kieron McGrath - SCS Astro Ltd.

I took delivery of the Tele Vue TV-102 in mid July but did not really get a chance to try out the
telescope until the weekend of September 22/23rd. The event was the Equinox Star Party,
held at Thetford, Norfolk in the South East of England. This has become a very popular
observing event. The skies in this part of the world are pretty dark and the seeing is generally
good.

By this time I had aquired a Gibraltar Mount and Tripod and the Tele Vue Sky Tour computer
system. I fitted the Sky Tour onto the Gibraltar Mount on Saturday evening prior to the start of
observing. It was a simple job that only took a few minutes.

Earlier in the day I put an Orion Solar Filter over the objective lens and viewed a massive sun
spot group. This was a truly naked eye feature and was easily visible. Views of the Umbra and
Penumbra were stunning with loads of contrast. When seeing was good, granulation could be
observed.

As soon as it was dark enough I carried out a 2 star alignment with the Sky Tour computer.
Set the telescope to the horizontal alignment mark, then select two bright stars from the Sky
Tour database. Centre each star in the field of view - and that's it!

Armed with a 35mm Panoptic, 17mm Nagler and 5mm Radian eyepiece I set off for a tour of
the Messier objects. M13, M57, M27, M81 & 82 (both in the same field of view), M92, M15,
the three Open Clusters in Auriga - M36, M37 & M38. Even M33 which I have always found to
be a difficult object due to it's low surface brightness. Every object popped into view using the
Sky Tour. At this point a fellow observer arrived with a Lumicon OIII filter. “Anybody want to
see the Veil Nebula?”, he asked. There it was, both arcs clearly visible. I had never seen it
before and without the filter it was very difficult to see. I think the best Deep Sky object I
observed was the Double Cluster in Perseus. The stars were incredibly sharp and crisp and
the cluster was absolutely stunning.

Soon after midnight Saturn and Jupiter began to rise in the east. This was what we had all
been waiting for. As Saturn struggled out of the atmospheric haze more detail began to
emerge. First the northern belt, then the shadow of the planet against the rings. Soon I was
catching fleeting glimpses of the Cassini division and by 3am you could see it clearly, dividing
the rings. At one stage I could see four of Saturn's moons, 10th to 12th magnitude objects.

Jupiter was a beautiful object. The belts were a brownish colour, with hints of red. They
appeared “lumpy” and showed more detail than I had ever seen before. At about 1am I could
see the start of a shadow transit of Io, when the moons shadow passes across the face of the
planet. By mid transit the tiny black disk was clearly visible.

The performance of the Tele Vue TV-102 was outstanding. The optics are superb and when
coupled with the Gibraltar Mount and Sky Tour you have a complete observing system. I have
recently added the Skybeam pointer to the telescope and have found this to be a great aid
when star hopping.

The Astronomy Shop

1 Tone Hill. Wellington

Somerset TA21 0AU

United Kingdom

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