What's the smallest reflecting telescope you'd use?
12/12/06 10:43 Filed in: Observing
I've always had a fondness for the
mechanically quirky yet optically excellent telescopes that come
out of the Siberian TAL manufacturing plant in Novosibirsk. Over
the years I've owned or reviewed just about the whole range.
This morning I was looking at the waning gibbous Moon with the
smallest reflector in the TAL range — the diminutive Alcor. It's a
65mm aperture (2.5-inch), 500mm focal length (f/7.7) Newtonian that
comes on an altazimuth mount and pedestal stand. It has just one
15mm focal length eyepiece that delivers 30x magnification on its
own, but used in combination with the supplied Barlow and extension
tube you can obtain magnifications of 90x and 130x.
The seeing was particularly good and the views were simply amazing for such a small, obstructed aperture. Mt. Pico, crater Plato and the environs were crisp and full of detail!

The seeing was particularly good and the views were simply amazing for such a small, obstructed aperture. Mt. Pico, crater Plato and the environs were crisp and full of detail!

