Optional Soft Carry Bag (model NPB-1001, outside dimensions: 29Lx5½Hx9½W-inches) for NP 101 or TV-102i can fit telescope, diagonal, adapter & 6-eyepiees -- or Starbeam & 2-eyepieces as shown. Includes carry handle and shoulder strap.

Soft Carry Bag (NPB-1001) only 28" long. Holds eyepieces and diagonal separately.

Tele Vue NP 101 

"Fitted with Tele Vue's remarkable 31-mm Nagler eyepiece, the NP 101 showed pinpoint stars across a vast 4-1/2º field. . . . This is a great combination for panoramic 'rich-field' views of the Milky Way."

Tele Vue Optics 

Saturn appeared etched into a dark sky. Differences in ring shading were obvious, as were several of the planet's faint moons. Jupiter's disk looked clean white with no discoloration from unfocused wavelengths or filtering effect of glass or coatings. Here was pure unadulterated light, just what an apo refractor should deliver. 

The tube's internal blackening worked well. Low-power views showed no sign of flares or ghost images from bright objects just outside the field. This is clearly one of the world's best telescopes, able to match or exceed the performance of any other premium apo of this aperture."

Tele Vue Impressions 

This excerpt concerning the TV-101, predecessor to the TV-NP101, is from Finding Your Place in the Galaxy, by Peter Leschak, which appeared in  National Geographic Adventure magazine (September 2004. p.62). For more information see the National Geographic Adventure website.

In his Celestial Handbook, Burnham wrote that amateur astronomers enjoy a benefit that dabblers in other fields lack. For example, rock hounds must usually be content with second- or third-rate specimens — they will not own the Hope diamond or the complete skeleton of a triceratops. But the part-time astronomer "has access at all times to the original objects of his study; the masterworks of the heavens belong to him as much as to the great observatories of the world. And there is no privilege like that of being allowed to stand in the presence of the original."

I greedily wanted to begin a total-immersion baptism of light with the new scope. A stretch of foul weather intervened, and, since we were approaching the summer solstice at 48 degrees north latitude, the back-woods sky above our cabin wasn't fully dark until after 10 p.m. I took "astronomy naps" in the afternoons so I could be alert at the eyepiece until long after midnight if the clouds should part.

On June 12 at 10:30 p.m. I set up the TV-101. It was clear, the atmosphere acceptably stable. A waning gibbous moon was due to rise close to 11 p.m., washing out the sky, so there wasn't much time to hunt for dim, deep-sky objects like galaxies, star clusters, or nebulae. I was also waiting for Jupiter to rise over the aspen and fir that hem in our yard.

I swung the scope to the constellation of Lyra, homing in on M57, the famous Ring Nebula. The Ring is a planetary nebula, an expanding shell of gas surrounding an exceptionally hot star. Such structures are often doughnut-shaped — a bright band with a dark core — the star sometimes visible in the center, like a cosmic bull's-eye. I'd seen the Ring as a fuzzy dot in the old 60-millimeter three decades before, and when I zeroed in with the TV-101 at a low power (27x), it appeared sharper and brighter than remembered, but still a dot.

When I inserted a higher-power eyepiece, my breathing stopped. I could see the Ring! The doughnut shape was distinct and magnificent. I was looking at a classic planetary nebula for the first time, radiant and crisp. I laughed aloud, delighted. I'd seen photographs, of course, practically drooled on them, but this was real, an "original".

My current scope, a Tele Vue four-inch refractor, with accessories such as special eyepieces, filters, a quality tripod, and other observational aids, cost me around $4,200 and was worth every penny. Its clean simplicity makes it easy to use, and it has offered me views of Saturn, the Great Nebula in Orion, the Andromeda galaxy, and hundreds of other "targets" that I had previously seen only in time-exposure photographs.