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There are a lot of small APO refractors available for sale across the amateur astro market.
Here at IanKingImaging alone, we have a wide enough range to confuse the would be buyer.
So where does the Scopos TL805 fit into things?
Scopos is the trademark name for a range of high quality instrumentation from Baader Planetrarium and Telescope Service, both in Germany.It is a collaborative effort between both companies.
TL805
The TL805 is an 80mm F7 triplet APO refractor that provides much superior colour correction to an equivalent aperture and focal ratio achromat.
We undertook some tests on the night sky both visually and with a CCD camera.
Visually the scope delivers the sort of sharp, contrasty, ostensibly false colour free views one has come to expect from high quality APO refractors.
A daytime rooftop test at high power also demonstrated the lack of false colour.
The scope shows nice intra/extra focal star images, we were suitably impressed with the optics visually but how does the scope perform with a CCD camera?
We undertook tests with both Starlight Xpress SXV-H9 and SXV-H16 camera’s
The results with a CCD camera demonstrate a level of colour correction that is typical of all but the most expensive and high end APO refractors.
M31 Scopis TL805 and SXV-H16 by Ian King
Images through Red,Green and Blue filters were sharp, with the blue images requiring a very small degree of focus adjustment. The TL805 provided pleasing and decent quality deep sky images with both camera’s.
The field is noticeably flatter than some of the doublet APO’s we have used, although a field flattener is still required when using a DSLR, if full field flatness is desired.
Mechanically the TL805 does not disappoint.
The scope features a very smooth and surprisingly strong Crayford focuser. Focussing with the 1:10 dualspeed mechanicsm was easy both visually and with a CCD camera.
The dew cap is retractable for portability and the tube is finished in a very nice white powder coating.The scope gives the impression of quality.
A nice touch is the split main tube. The TL805 has been engineered with a split main tube, that allows you to unscrew the two halves of the optical tube and use the scope with Binoviewers. This arrangement allows binoviewers to be used without the 1.6 to 2x optical path correctors that are necessary on other telescopes to achieve focus.
The supplied soft carry case is of decent quality with plenty of room for other accessories.
The TL805 is a decent addition to the range of small APO refractors on offer and the triplet optics and split main tube in particular set it apart from other scopes in it’s price range.
Ian King 9/2006