Tele Vue 60 Refractor Telescope OTA

Excerpt from Living Bird article by Dr. KenRosenberg, director of conservation science at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology.

TeleVue has introduced a new 60mm scope for birders, which includes the 45-degree prism, and when fitted with the same 8-24mm zoom provides powers from 15-45x. This scope is comparable in size, weight, and image quality to the best Swarovski or Kowa spotting scopes and may cost considerably less, …

— Dr. Rosenberg, K. “Scope Quest 2008”. Living Bird (2008 Winter). 46 – 47.

Excerpts from Dennis di Cicco review of the TV-60 in Sky & Telescope, December 2004

Even at 120x, brilliant Vega, one of the most challenging stars for a refractor to image cleanly, appears as a blue-white Airy disk surrounded by several white diffraction rings and no perceptible color halo.

— di Cicco, D. “Pint-Size Powerhouse: Tele Vue’s TV-60”. Sky & Telescope (Dec. 2004).

Read what SmartMoney has to say about the TV-60

SmartMoney magazine, The Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business, is all about recommending the wisest buys for their readers. The ‘Smart Spending’ section of the November, 2004, issue features the article Stargazing; “Today’s telescopes are so high-tech they seek out stars themselves. But we wondered: What would the world’s top amateur astronomer think of them?” In this context, the Tele Vue-60 was chosen the winner by David Levy after checking out four other scopes and the Tele Vue-60.The article concludes: “Our winner gave us the best view of Jupiter, and without any gizmos. ‘This is a sweet instrument,’ Levy says.”

— Light, J. “Stargazing”. Smart Money (Nov. 2004). 133-135.

Excerpts from Raymond Shubinski’s review of the TV-60 in Astronomy magazine

A note of caution: You may find yourself spending more time looking through the Tele Vue-60 than through your larger scope.

— Shubinski, R. “The Tele Vue-60”. Astronomy (Nov. 2004).

Excerpts from Randy Roy’s comments on Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews website.

If you want wide field, pristine, color free views throughout a wide range of magnification — if you want a scope that is a superfinder, a guidescope, a piggyback refractor, or an ultra-light travel scope — and if you demand the best in fit, finish and build quality — buy this. I’ve not seen anything else in its class that does so much.

— Roy, R. “Televue-60 APO”. Cloudy Nights Telescope Reviews (Feb. 4, 2004).

Excerpts from TV-60 review by Ed Ting, published on The Telescope Review Web Site

• TeleVue’s newest telescope is a cute little 60mm f/6 apo. In a departure from their usual styling, the TV60 has a sleek, tapered black body that resembles a spotting scope. …. The construction is heavy-duty and very serious. There’s a sliding bar on the bottom that’s very similar to the one on the Ranger. Like the Ranger, it has a helical focuser and drawtube assembly. Unlike the Ranger, the TV60 adds a nice sliding dew shield.
• The scope has impressive optics. …. No false color was noted. At only 15X (with a 24 mm Panoptic) Titan could be seen as a tiny pinpoint dot next to the planet. You can see Cassini’s Division on Saturn at 70x (with a 5 mm Type 6 Nagler.) …. The Trapezium was easily resolved, …. Castor is an easy split. Most impressively, the scope split Rigel, again at 70X. On deep sky, you have to make some allowances for the small aperture. M35 is just starting to resolve, but the other nearby clusters (M37, M36, M38) look like similar faint smudges in the eyepiece. Not exciting, but again, we’re only talking about a 60 mm telescope here.
• I once heard small scopes like this described as “One-Hour Telescopes.” You get to see pretty much everything you want to see in about an hour. As such, the TV60 is a great quick peek or travel scope.
• Update, 2/7/04: TeleVue informs me that they plan to offer an X-Y heavy duty version of their Starbeam mount, so that the TV60 can be mounted on a larger scope.

— Ting, E. “Tele Vue-60”. The Telescope Review Web Site (Feb. 1, 2004).