TELEVUE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:

1) eyepiece design, and

2) the development of multipurpose and astronomical refracting telescopes.

3) equipment that is particularly simple to set up and operate - and that is well documented for beginners or the experienced user alike.

Before TeleVue, observers relied on a few popular eyepiece designs such as the Erfle, Orthoscopic, Huygens, Plossl. These designs predated World War II. This selection limited the observer to eyepieces that showed relatively narrow fields of view, or were not capable of producing a flat field of view particularly when used on relatively "fast" (focal ratios lower than f7 or so) telescopes. Most of the short focal length (10mm to 12mm or less) oculars of the day would not accommodate the long eye relief (distance between the cornea of the human eye to the eyepiece lens) needs of spectacle wearers. So, TeleVue began again a tradition of innovation in eyepiece design the likes of which have not been seen since the heyday of the Carl Zeiss Jena company.

Al Nagler and his staff (with input from the observing community) have developed a product line of relatively compact telescopes which are all truly one man manageable instruments. Pioneering the development of very fast, wide field of view capable 4 inch achromatic and apochromatic refractors - Al Nagler it can be said fairly is a visionary. When he introduced the first high quality 4 inch f5.5 refractors for the market, no other company had any similar product on the market. These telescopes afford spectacular views rarely provided by other telescope systems in terms of brightness, field of view, detail, color fidelity, contrast, and clarity. Among the advantages of a short focal length refracting telescope is that the mounting can be relatively smaller, of lighter weight, and more compact than that required for longer telescopes; this improves portability and enhances use ability. TeleVue made smooth moving, affordable alt-azimuth mounts with beautiful hard wood tripods (such as the "Panoramic" and "Gibraltar" mounts) the most popular choices of mount for the 3 to 4 inch aperture apochromatic telescopes; these "idiot proof" mounts are so attractive that they are prized as furniture in many households too! What is distilled from all of these ingredients is a highly portable refractor system providing breath taking imaging qualities, suitable for a wide variety of terrestrial and astronomical photo and visual applications including: high-magnification lunar or planet studies or wide field of view panoramic or deep sky observing.

OPTICAL PRODUCTION

TeleVue telescopes, eyepieces, and accessories are designed by Al Nagler and then manufactured to his specifications in modern optical facilities in Japan, Taiwan, and in the U.S.A. The optical components are made using only precision grade optical glass, which are free of striae and imperfection. All eyepiece and most telescope air-spaced elements are fully multi-coated to insure high light transmission and low internal reflection characteristics .

MACHINING:

TUBE ASSEMBLY

MOUNTINGS