Feedback on turrets?

Can anyone give feedback regarding the optical performance of the TEC I-Turret or the Van Slyke HEX Turret? With a 130 mm f/6 AP and a Maxbright, what do you loose visually by substituting the turret for the diagonal? Any other issues?

Thanks for your comments and clear skies!

DFung

Darlene Fung said:

Can anyone give feedback regarding the optical performance of the TEC I-Turret or the Van Slyke HEX Turret? With a 130 mm f/6 AP and a Maxbright, what do you loose visually by substituting the turret for the diagonal? Any other issues?

Thanks for your comments and clear skies!

DFung

I would love to own a turret, and seriously considered buying the TEC version. Then I thought about conditions here. We get a lot of dew, and I could just imagine all the eyepieces in the turret dewing over. I suppose you could keep caps on them when not in use, but that seems to negate part of the advantage of the turret. They are also still hanging out where they are going to get nice and cold, making dewing more likely when uncapped.

Probably a better investment for me would be a heated eyepiece box. A friend made a nice one from a small cooler.

Clear skies, Alan

I briefly tried another brand of turret, and decided it
was not for me. As I discovered, the amount of force
needed to secure an up-side-down eyepiece is substantially
more than for a vertical eyepiece. I was not able to find
a "comfort zone" where I felt the eyepiece was secure without
leaving marks on it, so I gave it up.

I can detect no optical difference at all between my TEC turret and my Televue diagonal (dielectric coating version). This is with a TEC APO 140 (f7).

The turret is a breeze to use. One "bonus" benefit of the turret is that the indexing mechanism unlocks so that the active eyepiece can be rotated to whatever position is best for comfort. This is nice when compared to a regular diagonal, because there is no risk of dropping everything upon loosening the diagonal set screw. It works like a camera angle adjuster.

The quick magnification adjustment and "eyepiece angle adjustment" capacities of the TEC turret make it great for use sharing the telescope with kids or novices. It is a beautifully machined piece of equipment too.

If I had to point out a downside, the only thing I can think of is that the fully loaded turret is heavy. It is hard or impossible to properly balance a short telescope like my Sky 90 with the turret in place. Also it would not work at all with a Newtonian, unless you are a contortionist! I live in a dry climate so eyepiece dew is almost never a problem.

Jim

I have been using the Van Slyke Hexagonal 2" Turret on my C-14 and cannot imagine life without it. Have it loaded with type 4/5/6 Naglers...not having to fumble around in the dark to find and insert ep'S during public star parties makes toggling between magnifications a real joy...obviously being on a GEM helps as it allows me to slide the OTA forward to offset the Turret mass. I have both the Astro-physics Maxbright diagonal and turret and there is no apparent difference in visual performance...the other thing about the Van Slyke is that it has an integrated filter slot adapter so that a filter can be inserted and shared out very easily to all the Eyepieces...not having to remove the EP's means less contamination of the diagonal as well...I say go for it...

R/Scott

url http://www.SPACEAHOLIC.com/

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I've used a TEC I-Turret for a year or two and I like it a lot. It makes changing eyepieces a breeze and reduces the number of times you have to fiddle with eyepieces in the dark. It is on the heavy side, however, and the addition of five eyepieces will make it even heavier. Otherwise, it's a useful piece of equipment and well worth having, in my humble opinion.

Hi to all,

Thanks for your comments and feedback. The caveat about dew is well taken as I live where fog creeps in. Still, knowing Scott found no visual difference between the Maxbright and Van Slyke's Hex 2" is encouraging.

Clear Skies,

Darlene