Customer reviews
Maybe the best f/10 Fraunhofferakromat
Review by AlbertoSL on 23.08.2013 09:45:44( 5 / 5 )
The TAL100RS is one of the best, if not the best, f/10 refractor you can buy.
I have purchased this scope among with a SkyWatcher EQ5 mount. The EQ3 may probably be a bit undermounted.
The total weight of the OTA plus the ring clamps plus the dovetail is around the same weight as the Omegon 130/920 reflector telescope (also available in astroshop, and which also I purchased one year ago). But for better results, I strongly recommend the EQ5 mount, or at least an EQ4 or equivalent mount.
This scope is mostly designed for planetary, double stars and open cluster observation. The views from it are really stunning, you can even observe some easy diffuse deep space objects such as the Rign Nebula, but it is not designed for that.
About planetary observation, the Moon views are absolutely amazing, with an amazing contrast and the craters, cliffs and every feature very sharp and excelect definition. In Saturn, you can see a lot of detail, and with good seeing you can see the Cassini and even one or two of the planet bands.
Unluckily, Jupiter is not shown right now, so I couldn't still test the scope on it.
Also, it is amazing how this scope can stand high magnification. I stressed the scope at 320x and I was amazed how the moon still shows much detail without giving much blurry images. I guess what this scope is capable of with good seeing conditions!!!
When trying to observe double stars, it is amazing that bigger Newtonian telescopes can't show you the two stars in the binary system, but using the TAL 100RS they both are shown as two stars, perfectly defined and just two poins instead of a fuzzy light.
In addition, open clusters are shown really pretty, a lot of detail and a lot of stars are shown again as dots instead of fuzzy or blurry light. You can even see more stars than a much higher apperture Newtonian scope!!!
In the other hand, I heard that the TAL100RS can be used as a great solar scope, if you have the appropriate solar filter, of course. I didn't test it myself, but I read reviews about this fact and they said this is a good choice as a solar observing option, if you don't want to purchase a Coronado or something specially designed only for solar observing.
But the TAL100RS is not a perfect scope.
There are some flaws that anyone must be aware of, but in either case, those flaws are not annoying at all:
The first I found was the dew shield: it is a quite flimsy, plastic dew shield, so if it falls to the floor or some weight is put on it, it will probably blend or break, so take care when using it.
Also, this is a refractor or galilean telescope. You will have chromatic aberration. With the TAL100RS it is really reduced thanks to the focal ration (f/10) and also to the lens coating. But still, you will see CA here and there, mostly in the most bright sky objects such as bright stars like Vega, for example. So, if you are buyng also some eyepiece, you should definetely buy an eyepiece with low to none CA so the CA from the scope is not increased.
The CA from the scope is greatly reduced, so you will only see a bluish halo around those bright objects, and will never reduce image sharpness or resolution, like in other lower-quality refractos.
Also I have been told that there is a quite annoying downside in this scope: with some of the bigger 2" eyepieces, the scope can't get into focus, even when the focuser barrel is quite long, so take this into account if you are buying extra eyepieces.
Overall, this is a great scope for the price and quality, in my oppinion.
This scope comes with a metal (I think it is steel) 2" to 1.25" adaptor-reducer, steel 90º diagonal mirror, 6x30 finderscope, ring clamps, 1.25" Super-Plössl 6mm and 25mm eyepieces (both good quality) and crosslinked "filter" (used for aligning the finderscope).
If you are looking for a Fraunhofferakromat scope, you should definitely have the TAL100RS into account.
A nice scope!
Review by P. S. on 04.02.2013 16:40:22( 4 / 5 )
I bought this as a 'grab-n-go' scope for when I couldn't be bothered setting up and allowing my CPC800 to cool down.
The optics are really excellent: my first view of M42 seemed superior to that from my CPC800 (at twice the aperture!) - a really crisp almost '3D' image, with the Trapezium appearing pin sharp. I can also see more detail on Jupiter than with my CPC800. Chromatic aberration is not normally noticeable.
But get the right mount! I bought a Vixen Porta II to go with it, but the length and weight of the scope give it a high torque moment which overwhelms this mount. I've heard that the AZ4 is a better bet.
It also arrived with one of the bearings in the Crayford style focuser broken (which was easy to fix though and it worked nice and smoothly afterwards - see the TAL users group) and with the plastic drew shield cracked (a replacement has been promised).
All-in-all a very nice scope which I am very happy with!
Phil,
Weimar
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