TVS Loaner Scope Program
TVS Loaner Scopes
Loaner Scope Director: John Swenson
TVS has a loaner scope program available to its members.
Renting a scope for a month allows you to "test drive" a variety of scopes, whether you plan on buying one or not.
We have a variety of telescopes available to rent to club members. Scopes are rented for one month at a time, from one general meeting to the next. The price is $15 with a refundable $50 deposit.
We have a couple of special deals on the price. If you are a student then it is only $5. If you bring the telescope to one of our public or school star parties then we will refund your entire rental fee.
The telescopes are available on a first-come, first-serve basis at each general TVS meeting. Reservations are also accepted before the meeting by telephone or e-mail. Contact the Loaner Scope Program Director, John Swenson. The telescope must be returned at the next general meeting a month later (at the church in Livermore).
In the rental telescope program we currently have:
- Two modified 10" f/4.5 Coulter Odyssey Dobsonians
(the Jack Marling 10" telescope and the Conrad Stolarski telescope).
The scopes come with a Telrad finder. The Marling scope comes with a Lumicon Sky Vector (a computerized pointing system).
- Another 10" Dob.
The Dobs are easy to use and a have a big enough aperture to see a lot of objects. Fairly heavy when lifted in one piece, but not too bad when taken apart (base and tube separated). They take a long time to cool down to really get good high power images. These are great for viewing galaxies, nebulas and other "Deep Sky Objects" (DSOs), but not necessarily the best instrument for planetary viewing.
- Two 8" Schmidt-Cassegrains (SCTs). Both come with a tripod, equatorial wedge and AC drive motor for tracking. One has an inverter to run the drive off a battery. We also have a separate drive controller which would work well with either of these.
These are good all around scopes, have a big enough aperture to see many DSOs, a long focal length which makes high power planetary viewing easy, and they can track the sky. Because of the design they are physically small for the aperture and focal length, but fairly heavy.
- 75mm (3") f/16 Unitron refractor on a German equatorial mount and tripod
(the Jerry Howland Telescope). Scope has a small finder scope.
This is a long focal length achromatic refractor. It's great for planetary or lunar viewing, but the aperture is kind of small for most DSO work. The mount and tripod are very sturdy.
- Astroscan. This funny looking scope is small and quite portable. A big thanks to John Horvath for donating this scope to the loaner program.
Each of the telescopes includes at least a couple of eyepieces, star charts, books, and an Edmund Scientific planisphere with the rental. The planisphere is yours to keep after the rental.
The Dobsonian telescopes are easier to set and use for beginners and are recommended for first time telescope users.
The Jack Marling six inch Telescope is currently having the mount repaired and is unavailable for rental. Feel free to direct any further questions to the Rental Telescope Program Director, John Swenson.
Our first ten inch scope, with the Sky Vector computer, and the Cave six inch scope were donated by Dr. Jack Marling. Our second ten inch scope was donated by Conrad Stolarski. The three inch Unitron scope was donated by Jerry Howland.
We also have an assortment of non-telescope items for rent, including:
- 8x56 Celestron binoculars.
If you are new to astronomy, this is a nice way to learn your way around the sky. It's much easier to get started with a low power binocular than a high power telescope, and it's much more portable!
- Nagler 31mm type 5 eyepiece.
This is the BIG one! This eyepiece gives you a very wide razor sharp low magnification view. You do need a 2" focuser to use this eyepiece.
- Color filter set.
Good for planetary viewing. Different colors will bring out different details in the planets.
- Black and White video camera 'eyepiece', designed to be used with a telescope. The camera fits in where your eyepiece would normally go, and the other end connects to a monitor. It's great for showing the moon and to show objects to a large group of people. It's not sensitive enough for DSOs (Deep Sky Objects). Due to its built in automatic gain control it's not so great on planets, unless you can get the planet covering a good portion of the screen (which will need a good tracking mount). If the planet doesn't cover a large portion of the screen the AGC will cause it to be washed out.