Bresser Messier AR127L Exos 2 Goto

[russ.will]

On da lawn!

No justification really, except I missed having an EQ mount and have had this irritating fracing itch that desperately needed scratching. I've had a quick look at the moon and Jupiter, before the haze turned to slightly more concerted cloud, which is amazing considering I only unboxed it an hour or two ago. Clearly, the Germans (asroshop.de) don't give away as much free cloud as UK dealers.

I haven't even read the instruction manuals yet, but 30mins of polar aligning and fiddling later, it's banging targets into pretty much the centre of FOV of my ES82 11mm, so it's a good start.

Russell

[Steep]

Looking dead sexy it is too, extremely white!

[John]

Looks very nice Russell

I'll look forward to reading what you think of it.

[russ.will]

Way to early to say too much, as I managed about another hour before the clouds rolled back in and seeing wasn't exactly brilliant prior to that. However, there's a lot less 'colour' than I was expecting. The lunar limb (which was pretty low down at this point) showed just the merest hint of a yellow fringe. M44 was tack sharp from edge to edge. Slewing the stars to the outer FOV just brought on false colour and astigmatism, inherent in the ES82 30mm EP. I can't wait to go Glob hunting with this scope.

I think I'm going to need an extension pillar.

The mount is very loud at full speed, but it is also very fast. Way faster than my old HEQ5 Pro. I'm going to investigate limiting slew speed, as two notches down from max (64x?) is still quick enough and a lot quieter.

Saturday night has a clear forecast. Fingers crossed.

Russell

[John]

....I think I'm going to need an extension pillar.....

Yes, I found that when I started using larger refractors. I got a 16" Orion (US) one used in the end which is compatible with Skywatcher EQ3-2 / 5 / HEQ5 tripods. I don't always use it but when viewing anywhere near the zenith it is very useful.

Hope you get some good viewing with it soon

[alan potts]

A very nice looking scope, I fancied the 6 inch version of this but was a little put off by people on site, also I don't have a big enough mount for one. But yours looks very nice, I hope the sky clears for you.

Alan.

[Damo636]

Congrats Russell, thats a lovely looking piece of kit.

[Dunkster]

Nice one Russell those ES EPs should feel right at home

[russ.will]

Thanks chaps. I'll post some better pictures later, probably in the user reviews sections.

Dunkster, they certainly are. Just as well because there's only one EP included and it's a Bresser 26mm Super Plossl - Note the price. Quite how something can be described as a Plossl with 5 elements and a 60deg FOV, I'm not sure. The thing is, from peering down it under bright lighting, I can only see a pair of 2 element groups, whereas the real (read original Jap manufactured Meade) Super Plossls slid a fifth inbetween. Thus the spec is something like those now unvailable originals, whilst inspection seems to contradict this. I think it's a Meade Series 4000 Super Plossl clone, which I think kept the 'Super' even thought the extra element disappeared a decade or so ago.

Confusion aside, it's not bad. I jammed it in the diagonal as it was to hand and carried out the initial setup with it. I carried on using it for a while quite happily, until I noticed the stars near the edge of FOV were a bit bloated and colourful and when looking too near the field stop. I trudged back inside, one eye closed, to retrieve my eyepiece case.

Overall, it's a definite cut a goodly above the usual MA/Super MA 10 & 25mm pairing that most scopes ship with, but without even a perfunctory barlow in the box, it's a bit limiting. That said, this isn't exactly a 'first scope' purchase proposition, with most potential buyers probably already tooled up in this regard, so this is less of an issue.

Russell

[Dunkster]

almost looks grab and go

[SnakeyJ]

Russ,

Glad to see you got this intact and achieved first light so quickly - no cloud and 30 minutes setup, including polar alignment must be breaking a few records for a new scope. I think it took me almost a week before I got the AR-152S out of the box and had my first peek (though I was still trying to conceal it from the misses at the time!). Looks like the supplied diagonal is streets above the cheap and nasty 1.25" diagonal that came with mine, though that was unbranded and I do not know if it was the original issue. Should have the the Meade 5000 diagonal for the end of the month, so looking forward to getting proper first light in soon after,

Nice to hear that the CA is controlled, particularly on the moon and that the ES82 30mm is performing - veil nebula springs to mind if you can find dark enough skies.

Other than the loud noise on slewing - well documented for the LDX75s, how do you rate the build quality and stability of the mount/tripod?

Look forward to reading the full and gory details once your get a more extended period at the EP - fingers crossed for Friday/Saturday night!

[John]

Looking at the photos further, it does look very similar to the Meade AR5 LXD55 except that the Meade did not have a collimatable objective cell wheras I think the Bresser 127L does. Meade added that with the LXD75 version of the AR5. I'm glad they have put a longer dew shield on them now. My older Bresser 127L and Meade AR5 had rather short dumpy affairs which did not look right and were not as efficient as they should have been in heavy dew conditions.

I found the CA on the Bresser 127L that I had quite well controlled too. Noticeably better than the faster Evostar 120 I thought. I'm beginning to wish I'd not sold the Bresser seeing these photos - it was a very good full 5" achromat for it's cost

I hope you get lots more clear skies soon Russell. Saturn will look great with that scope

[russ.will]

I think the whole thing is very much an AR5 LXD75 - The 497 Autostar hand controller even says Meade on it.

I have noted some differences though. The AR5 used to get criticised for the objective cell mounting screws protruding into the light path. On the AR127, they are tapped into the OTA tube, very much flush and tips blackened. You can just see one in the top photo above. The dew shield does look longer than the AR5 item, although I haven't seen one in the flesh - I think it could be an inch or two longer still though.

The solid metal 2" diagonal with brass compression rings, compressed by three (count 'em!) screws grips like a vice and makes centering the EP easy and has a nice tapered undercut. It may not be a dialectric (can't confirm either way), but it's more than serviceable and has moved down the list of potential upgrades.

The finder, which looks like a straight clone of the Meade job, is a lot nicer than my Skywatcher 9x50, even before you get to the illuminated reticle. The difference over the AR5 pictures I've seen, is that the riser is a good 2" longer, so although they didn't go the whole hog with an RA finder, at least there's a bit more room to contort my prodigeous fillet underneath it, when pointing at higher declinations.

Russell

[alan potts]

Russell

I do not recommend the bounce test when you are doing a more in depth report on the scope. I was interested by what you say about the finder, I think my Meade is utter rubbish and much prefer the SW though it is not as good looking. I might just get one of these sooner or later, they are a lot of scope for the money.

Alan

[si@nite]

I have the same scope Russell & have produced many good images with it, when i bought mine it came with the mon 2 eq mount, which i wished i had kept!

Performs great on lunar & planetary, i would recomend a baader semi apo filter too, it just about cures any false colour that bigger achros produce, enjoy because i wont be parting with mine any time soon!

[russ.will]

Russell

I do not recommend the bounce test when you are doing a more in depth report on the scope. I was interested by what you say about the finder, I think my Meade is utter rubbish and much prefer the SW though it is not as good looking. I might just get one of these sooner or later, they are a lot of scope for the money.

Alan

Examining the two side by side, the Bresser has noticeably more lusterous coatings than the SW. Holding them both up to the eye in daylight and examining far off ridge tiles, the Bresser seemed just a bit more contrasty, if not any sharper. The eyepiece of the Bresser also seems to give a wider FOV, albeit with slightly tighter eye relief.

I do wonder if it's maybe, it's time to stop calling Bresser/ES stuff Meade and start accepting that they are brands of JOC and not necessarily the same due to the details that can vary under the skin so to speak.

And you're absolutely right - I won't be doing a bounce test. At least, not intentionally!

Russell

[russ.will]

I have the same scope Russell & have produced many good images with it, when i bought mine it came with the mon 2 eq mount, which i wished i had kept!

Performs great on lunar & planetary, i would recomend a baader semi apo filter too, it just about cures any false colour that bigger achros produce, enjoy because i wont be parting with mine any time soon!

Point taken on the Semi Apo filter, although from my brief aquaintance with it under the stars, I think I can probably live without it, for now at least.

If you have the Bresser, why do you call it a Meade in your signature.

Russell

[si@nite]

Point taken on the Semi Apo filter, although from my brief aquaintance with it under the stars, I think I can probably live without it, for now at least.

If you have the Bresser, why do you call it a Meade in your signature.

Russell

Meade on the scope, came with bresser booklet ive since found out its the same scope!

[russ.will]

Other than the loud noise on slewing - well documented for the LDX75s, how do you rate the build quality and stability of the mount/tripod?

The tripod seems very stable. I know memory is fickle, but I swear the legs are massive compared to my HEQ5, which I thought were two inch.

As for the mount, well I suppose I need to let it run in a bit first. There is a little play in both axis, but only enough to move a star about halfway across a 11mm EP FOV, so I'll let it bed in before adjusting the worms. The noise was a bit of a shock, as paranoia made me think the HEQ5 was loud. At full chat, this thing is like a blender, but playing with the slew speeds showed that it was very much quieter at speed 7 (1.5deg/sec) and nearly bearable at speed 8 (2.5(ish)deg/sec) compared to 9 (5deg/sec) max. According to the destruction manual, there are settings in the handset to limit the maximum speed, as well as the maximum declination - I've nearly had a diagonal/tripod interface incident already!

Russell

[russ.will]

Meade on the scope, came with bresser booklet ive since found out its the same scope!

What do the objective cell mounting screw haeds look like inside your OTA?

Russell

[alan potts]

Russell,

I only normally call things that I have bought and found to be below parr. I agree the SW finder, well it looks a bit cheap is the best way I can put it. but using it was better than the Meade that is until it took part in the bounce test. It just seemed sharper with more contrast. The thing that got my back up with the Meade finder was it was on a scope that cost over 4000 quid, by the time I had changed what I didn't live I had added another 1000. I have to say that I saw one of the finders that ExSc put on their scopes and was much more impressed. I would not be supprised if yours is the same model.

Alan

[John]

Examining the two side by side, the Bresser has noticeably more lusterous coatings than the SW. Holding them both up to the eye in daylight and examining far off ridge tiles, the Bresser seemed just a bit more contrasty, if not any sharper. The eyepiece of the Bresser also seems to give a wider FOV, albeit with slightly tighter eye relief.

I do wonder if it's maybe, it's time to stop calling Bresser/ES stuff Meade and start accepting that they are brands of JOC and not necessarily the same due to the details that can vary under the skin so to speak.

And you're absolutely right - I won't be doing a bounce test. At least, not intentionally!

Russell

Having owned both a Meade AR5 LXD75 and a Bresser 127L and looking at the pics of your scope and some others that other members have owned I'm pretty sure they are all the same scope with a few cosmetic changes here and there. Many aspects of yours look identical to the scopes I had - the focuser, the finder OTA, the tube rings, the objective cell and counter cell (from what I can see of it in your photos).

Thats no bad thing - my old Bresser 127L was a good scope and it won the Sky & Night Group test on 5" achromats a couple of years back. I don't think Bresser have designed and produced a new scope here though, being honest with you.

A member of this forum bought two like yours last year I recall - maybe he will chip in at some point.

Hope the skies clear soon so you can look though it a bit more, rather than at it

[russ.will]

Russell,

I only normally call things that I have bought and found to be below parr. I agree the SW finder, well it looks a bit cheap is the best way I can put it. but using it was better than the Meade that is until it took part in the bounce test. It just seemed sharper with more contrast. The thing that got my back up with the Meade finder was it was on a scope that cost over 4000 quid, by the time I had changed what I didn't live I had added another 1000. I have to say that I saw one of the finders that ExSc put on their scopes and was much more impressed. I would not be supprised if yours is the same model.

Alan

It does look like the one that ES sell on their achro fracs, but it's certainly not the one that comes with their ED Triplets. Now that does look like a nice finder that would be worth buying in it's own right. Mind you, they're $150-200, so they're clearly not playing the same ball game!

I've just been outside to take some photos (no chance of observing with the amount of wind and cloud) and played with the ES and SW finders alongside each other at the same targets - namely a 18th century chimney stack and tall trees behind, backlit against a narrowly post sunset sky. There's probably less in it than I thought, but the views are surprisingly different, considering they're both "8x50" finders.

The SW seems to be slightly lower magnification and have slightly wider FOV. The Bresser seems a little crisper in the middle, much the same toward the edge, but also displays a bit more false colour at the extremities. The SW seems a little more fussy about eye relief, the Bresser about keeping your eye centred.

I don't think either would make it onto the list of all-time-greats and I too would be somewhat miffed if one turned up on a £4k scope. As a bundled finder on a budget scope like this one, I would feel slightly less inclined to upgrade the Bresser. That's mainly down to the illuminated reticle (never had one before) and the fact that it feels so solid, rather than it having clear superiority over the SW. I also like that it slides back/down into it's shoe. If the two locking bolts came loose, you'd have a loose finder. If my SW came loose, I'd be joining you in the bounce test!

Soldity/feel is part of the reason I went for the Bresser AR127, over the undoubtably more mainstream alternatives. I want something that actually feels like the money you spent on it, not like it's made out of biscuit tin. I had the same problem with buying an SW ED80 and went for a WO Zenithstar. Maybe not the rational decision, but then this is a hobby and part of the my fun IS pride of ownership embued by the operational feel.

Russell

[russ.will]

Having owned both a Meade AR5 LXD75 and a Bresser 127L and looking at the pics of your scope and some others that other members have owned I'm pretty sure they are all the same scope with a few cosmetic changes here and there. Many aspects of yours look identical to the scopes I had - the focuser, the finder OTA, the tube rings, the objective cell and counter cell (from what I can see of it in your photos).

Thats no bad thing - my old Bresser 127L was a good scope and it won the Sky & Night Group test on 5" achromats a couple of years back. I don't think Bresser have designed and produced a new scope here though, being honest with you.

A member of this forum bought two like yours last year I recall - maybe he will chip in at some point.

Hope the skies clear soon so you can look though it a bit more, rather than at it

Although my point was specifically with respect to the finder, I don't think it's a new scope either. Indeed it's clearly not and I knew that. However, to say it is the exactly the same scope as the AR5, maybe open to some debate.

It seems generally excepted that two clone EPs from the same manufacturing house may be different, inspite of superficially similar specs. It is frequently stated on this forum, that different brands may have first dibs on a production run, specify different coatings, tollerances, etc, etc, even at the budget end. BST/Barsta/Olivion/Orion Epic EPs spring to mind. In that example, there even seems to be a 100% difference in the number of ED elements claimed, before you even investigate the other probable improbables!

It's no great leap to assume that the Bresser and Meade scopes are therefore potentially different in the details. With no first hand experience of the AR5, I'm not about to make claims on that account, as to superiority one way or the other. However, the one notable difference and the one issue that I saw repeatedly claimed about in the run up to buying my first long frac, was AR5 owners beefing about the counter cell nuts protuding into the light path and producing diffraction effects. Would I notice? No idea, but that issue has clearly been dealt with in the Bresser, by using much shorter screws tapped into the OTA wall - See tonights pictures that follow and compare to the link I posted in post #13. There are differences.

Of course, it's not lost on me that compulsive optic cleaners will eventually complain of threads stripping in the aluminium OTA and needing longer screws so they can fit nuts.....

I'm not under any illusions about the compromised budget nature of this scope, nor the origins from which it springs. Indeed, I'm pretty sure that Google threw up the relevant threads from the prior AR127 owner you mention, in exactly the way the forum search didn't! I've probably also mentioned this before and the reasons why, but the S@N review was probably one of the least influential reasons I bought it. Long term experience beats a shoot-out review, every time.

One thing did spring to mind during my research though. If Meade still made and had evolved scopes and mounts like this, they might still be worth more than a penny stock. The differences between the AR5 LXD55 and LXD75 were all about the mount, whilst the screw issue remained unaltered. Improved bearings are a much better story than than 'NEW! iMPROVED SCREWS!' apparently. It seems to this multi-discipline observer, that their marketing driven approach, forgot about the diverse, mundane, budget foundation upon which they built their market. Focusing on expensive innovation that they couldn't fully finance to completion, or at least couldn't finish before marketing released it, seems to be a common story in this world and the one of hi-fi, that I do know inside out.

They're still forecasting clear skies and low winds for the weekend. Don't tell anybody!

Russell

[russ.will]

As promised, gratuitous scope pictures.

Just for Alan - Finders:

Just for SW owners - Nicely machined, non-bendy bolts that don't hit the polar scope:

Just for John - Big(ish) glass:

Just for AR5 owners - Short screws:

Just for Newt owners - A lens cell: