TeleVue NP127


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Brand and Model:TeleVue NP127
Price ($USD):5975
Type:Apochromatic Refractor
Attributes: un-checked Go-To un-checked PEC
Aperture:127 mm
f Ratio:5.2
Focal Length:660
Finder:
Electric Power:
Mount:
Tripod:
Weight (lbs):14
Dimensions (w/h/d):33 in
Description:"Big brother" flagship to the Tele Vue-NP101

Specifications
Clear Aperture: 127mm (5")
Focal Length: 660mm
Optics: 4-element flat-field
Focal Ratio: f/5.2
Visual Resolution 0.9 arc-sec.
Weight: 14 lbs. (O.T.A.)
Length: 33" (O.T.A.)

Vote Highlights Vote
TeleVue NP127
Hi all,

just wanted to share my odessey with my Np-127 which arrived in May.
There's some bad, and some good, mostly good, I'll explain. When I
got my scope in May I set it up on the Gibralter mount, for 1st.
light. The weather was'nt great, alot of turbulance in the sky. The
first thing I noticed was that stars would'nt come to focus, there
was spiking at 6 o'clock, no matter what EP was in the scope,
whatever star I was looking at, there was spiking always in the same
place, 6 O'clock, the same was true for Jupiter, still I felt the
scope had alot of potential. I star tested the scope and right off I
noticed that the bottom 2 rings were 50% fatter than the top part of
the rings, at first I thought this was due to the bad weather. So I
took it out the next night when the weather was better, nothing had
changed.

Next day I talked to Al Nagler, he was convinced I had astigmatism in
my eyes, and that I needed one of his new Dioptrx for my EP's. Well
next day I went to the Eye Doctor and $100.00 latter, I found out
that I had absolutley NO ASTIGMATISM!!

Well after that I had a few of my astro. club members look thru the
scope and they saw the same thing, now we all can't have the same
astigmatism in the same place, there's no way! One of my friends who
is very knowledgible with refractors looked in Suiter's book on
optics, and came to the conclusion that it was out of collimation!

Next day I called Al, and told him what happened, he said send it
back so they can check it out. A week latter I got a call from Tele
Vue from the person who collimates the scopes, he said that the scope
was grossly out of collimation, and he did'nt know why, there were no
signs of damage or anything else on the scope that would indicate it
was jarred out of collimation. He said he addressed the problem and
that the scope was now fine.

A week latter I got my scope back, and set it up, no spiking
whatsoever!! WOW!! what a fine 5" scope!! Stars were fine pinpoints
across the whole FOV, Jupiter showed 6 bands easily with alot of
detail when the atmosphere would setttled down. Brighter DSO looked
very nice and very contrasty, I saw the Ring, Veil, Dumbell, Swan,
Lagoon nebulas, and with no filters! They were so nice ala natural.
Also M81 & M82 showed up very nicely as did M31. I split the double
double with no problem, I saw 4 beautiful tight dots. Globular
clusters like M13 resolved nicely too, though tighter clusters like
M92 resolved but not to the degree of M13, it's no fault of the scope
it's an apeture thing, not enough light gathering abilty.

I've never seen such a wide flat field in my life, I mean really
flat! Open clusters like the double cluster are just spectacular! One
thing I noticed from this scope is that it really eats up dark skies,
in other words when the skies get really dark alot of DSO really pop
out at you, no averted vision needed.

The other thing I'd like to mention is that if you'd like to use high
power i.e 200x you have to stack quite a bit of glass to achive it in
doing so I don't know if this dims the object, also whith so much
glass it can tax the Gibralter mount causing it more time for the
scope to settle down from shaking, which at high power can be
annoying. This is an issue with this mount not the scope itself, the
scope seems to soak up high power very nicely.

Well thats my story, in the end I'd have to say I'm very pleased with
this scope it's a keeper!!

Overall Rating: 9
Optics:10 Mount:7 Ease of Use:10 Value:9
Weight: 5 (Veritable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=456620

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