saxon

After decades of being fascinated by space and its mysteries about 12 years ago I bought a Bresser Messier N203 8" Newtonian and had a lot of fun observing the planets and moon. I made do with the free basic eyepieces that came with the scope for a couple of years but eventually invested in a single excellent Vixen Lanthaneum UWA (68) 5mm eyepiece which afforded much better planetary views and stunning close-ups of the moon. Unfortunately due to the demands of a busy shiftworking job and a young family my telescope fell out of use eventually. This was further compounded by the time taken to drag the scope outside, align and set-up, wait for thermal stability and then pack it all away again which added to the general hassle factor so the mount ended up languishing in the shed for several years and the OTA was put in a spare room and then eventually the garage. In recent months I have been observing again with binoculars - it's amazing how rewarding combing the night sky is with those and how easy it is just to mooch around enjoying the wonders of the heavens. Around 15 years ago I acquired a basic £100 10x50 Bushnell set although holding them steady was a challenge they worked well. They're not very compact though and so a couple of years ago I purchased a far higher quality pair of binoculars - the Pentax SD 8x42 WP. These are in a different league optically, pin sharp, waterproof, nitrogen purged so they don't steam up and far easier to hold steady. A great all round choice for a pick up and go bino. With all the free time afforded by Covid lockdown I decided to get my old telescope out of the shed a couple of months ago. Sadly when I pulled it out the entire mount was a rusting hulk of metal only fit for scrap! The drive motors no longer worked and the mechanism was evidently in dire need of stripdown, service and lubrication. After investigating the costs of such remedial work I discovered that even just having it serviced would likely cost 60% of the cost of a brand new mount. Luckily the OTA was in far better shape having suffered only some dust and dirt on the mirror. I briefly pondered the option of buying my dream scope - a Celestron CPC 925 but then with job insecurity at present and the fear that I might not use such a scope enough to warrant the £2700 cost I felt that a cheaper solution would be more prudent. I was also rather fond of my old telescope and rather liked the idea of resurrecting it and making it even better than ever! After a bit of hunting around I found a Bresser Exos 2 Go-To mount on sale for £499 and purchased it. It's the new version of my old mount and is actually far superior in terms of both look and feel. My old mount had always been rather stiff to use, the new one was buttery smooth and far better finished - it also had the benefit of built in go-to. I bought some new parts too for the OTA - new tube rings, illumination units for the finderscopes and an additional counter weight in Bresser's rather fetching new white and red colours. After all that given it was dirty with 12 years accumulated grime I elected to wash my primary mirror for the first time ever! That was a mildly hair-raising experience - especially because I decided that the recommendation to use cotton wool for this was only propagated because microfibre cloths hadn't been invented when the advice to use cotton wool first emerged. Anyway I am happy to report that a soaking wet microfibre cloth and distilled water did a fine job on cleaning the mirror without scratches and that was replaced successfully and laser collimated. Having observed for a few nights with my old eyepieces I decided to treat myself to a couple of new Explore Scientific wide field eyepieces as these seemed to offer a nice balance between quality and price. In came the 24mm 82 degree and the 8mm 68 degree and I'm happy to report that both offered massively better quality than my old kit ones. Crucially even on my 900mm f4.5 scope they didn't suffer from field curvature and I have since gone on to order a 2x barlow from FLO (which has yet to arrive). I spent many nights during the spring and summer finding numerous deep sky objects for the first time and having my mind blown by seeing M51 the Whirlpool galaxy or various globular clusters so clearly. In tandem with my scope refurbishment I started investigating buying a pier. I've always hated tripods because of the way they provide more chance of tripping over things in the dark and because they are heavy and bulky to move around. It became clear that commercial piers are ridiculously expensive (£400-£500) and even having something fabricated by a local metalworking company was costly. It was then I stumbled across the so called 'Todmorden pier' made from concrete blocks. My pier needs to be mounted on my back garden patio as the lawn is a mudbath in Winter and I was concerned about drilling down into the slabs and cracking them and so a friend who is very DIY savvy told me about something called 'Sticks like [removed word]'. I was dubious but decided that given the low cost of the concrete blocks it was worth a try. So 3x concrete blocks (£7), masonry paint £20 and some of the rather rude glue (£5) and I was up and running. The pier is solid as a rock literally and took very little time to build. I investigated the idea of buying a pier adapter plate (£80 ish) and was about to press the button to buy one when I remembered my old mount! I salvaged the adapter plate from the old tripod and secured it to the top of my new pier with more of the unmentionable glue after painting it with some red hammerite salvaged from the garage. The result as hopefully the accompanying pics show is a very pleasant looking pier complete with drinks holding shelves which is stable, aligned and level. I have now taken to leaving the scope on the pier overnight when we get runs of good weather protected by one of those Telegizmos silver foil covers (£70). It greatly encourages me to observe more frequently having the scope aligned and already temperature stabilised and has proved to be totally watertight even in rain. Better still the silver foil coating keeps the scope fairly cool in the heat of Summer. Of course I still dream of having a Skyshed Pod and unobstructed views across empty fields when I eventually retire but as a cheap interim solution this is a huge leap forward. I was now very happy indeed with what I was seeing with my rejuvinated telescope and have been savouring many nights under the stars in recent weeks, taking great delight in being the only one up at 2am in the garden with a mug of tea in my thermal mug. The feeling of being at one with the universe is hard to describe but truly beautiful to experience and I'm having a great time exploring Messier objects galore that I have never seen before. Go-to accuracy on the Bresser Star Tracker system has been good and it usually places objects within the 24mm eyepiece field of view. The only annoying part of the system is the fact it emits loud beeps when it completes a slew and I haven't yet found a way to make it silent! The last piece of the jigsaw was to replace the focuser. My scope has a frankly appalling rack and pinion focuser which is hard to fine tune and when you do turn the focus the entire image pivots left, right, up, down in the view due to the excessive play in the drawtube and the generally poor engineering. Trying to focus on a star is akin to trying to shoot down a Tie fighter from a gun turret on the Millenium Falcon!! I'm a pretty incompetent DIY'er though and fear of the difficulty of fitting a new focusser had prevented me doing anything about it for years. This year though I decided I would finally crack the problem. I contacted First Light Optics who provided superb advice and batted back and forth some pictures and measurements of my existing focusser and its unusually long drawtube. In the end I settled on a beautiful red Moonlite CR2 dual speed Crayford with their longest 2.75" drawtube. This took 5-6 weeks to arrive from the USA, but FLO were very good at keeping me informed of the likely delivery dates. The Moonlite and it's associated fitting kit arrived yesterday and I have to say the quality of engineering on offer is utterly gorgeous, it makes my old focuser feel like a joke, the metalwork is superb, the engineering worthy of NASA, the anodising is flawless. Best of all though (and I didn't know this when I ordered it!) the mounting kit comes with a mounting plate pre-drilled for almost every popular make of scope - so I didn't need to drill into my OTA at all because the mounting plate had pre-drilled holes which correspond to the Bresser's mounting geometry. I slowly and methodically removed the old focuser, fitted the new one and am absolutely delighted with how incredibly stable the focus is now. No more shooting tie fighters while focussing!! As a visual observer the focuser is a part of my scope I interact with pretty regularly and it is a joy to be able to do that with the Moonlite and to savour its precision. I would recommend fitting a Moonlite to anybody using a budget chinese scope like mine - it really does elevate the whole experience and makes it feel like a far more capable astronomical device. I didn't bother collimating last night and still found stars and globular clusters tack sharp and precise but that's my next task today! When I pulled my rusting mount out of the shed earlier this year I didn't really anticipate spending as much money as I have on getting it all working again, however having made the investment I feel I now have a great mid range telescope which is fantastic for DSO's and lunar observing in particular and is just a total joy to use. I'm so happy with it now that I might not ever bother buying something like the Celestron CPC when this does everything I need beautifully. Thanks to FLO and Bresser EU for all their help and advice and wishing you all clear skies, Saxon

That was the best written and most engaging observing report I have ever read!! I've also ordered the Cambridge book you recommended secondhand so thank-you for that tip. As someone who has only dabbled on and off with my 8" Newtonian during the past 10 years, your recommendations of what to look at and what one might see are fantastic and have given me many new targets to try for tonight. I actually think you could build a very useful webpage/blog around your knowledge of the night sky because for people like me the issue is often what to look at on a given night. I tried Jupiter and Saturn early this morning when they were low in the sky but thought the seeing was very poor/murky. At the time I put it down to the amount of atmosphere due to low elevation in the sky, but in fact maybe it was because I replaced my focusser with a very nice Moonlite yesterday and didn't get chance to re-collimate the scope afterwards. Either way many thanks for your great report! Saxon

Alacant, it's a 12 year old model so fore-runner to your scopes - will post a photo. Saxon

I have 3x supposedly astro worthy DSLR's - Pentax K1 full frame 36megapixels, 2x APSC bodies Pentax K3 24mp and Pentax K5 16Mp. Also have an APSC Fuji XE3. They're all fantastic cameras and as a keen experienced photographer and inexperienced astronomer I thought it might be worth dabbling in astrophotography. I have a Bresser Messier N203 f4.5 Newtonian on their EQ5 style stand with the Bresser Goto. Telescope is mounted on a concrete pier and has accurate polar alignment. Goto tracking is pretty good - I'm getting objects just inside the midpoint of a 24mm Explore Scientific 68 degree eyepiece and getting better all the time. Scope has been collimated. Current rack and pinion focuser is rubbish and wobbles in the drawtube so have a Moonlite CR2 on order due in 2 weeks ish. I bought a suitable T adapter for Pentax and the T2 thing to connect to a 1.25" eyepiece holder. First problem - couldn't achieve focus like that. Tried my cheapie barlow in there too and still no joy. Discovered using the bright star Arcturus that I could get focus with a 25mm cheapie plossl that came with my scope. Was out last night with superb views in the Explore Scientific 24mm eyepiece of M81 and M82 so decided to see if I could photograph them. Couldn't see them through the viewfinder or the back of camera so had no idea if the camera was actually pointing at them or if they were in focus if it was! Tried some long exposures (30secs ISO 800 and 1600) and got nothing worthwhile at all, no visible galaxies there! My question is how do I manage to get an image of the galaxies on my laptop or camera to see what I am taking? Would it just be a whole lot less hassle to dabble with a basic astrocam - and if so which? I already use Stellarium for planning observing and have just bought Starry Night pro 8 (which has more reliable telescope control for my mount). Have the upgrade cable coming for my goto system to flash the firmware and enable computer control via Starry Night (apparently reliably) and Stellarium (reportedly flaky). Grateful for any advice! Saxon

Thanks guys, actually after checking and measuring it looks like the Moonlite should cover all the holes in my OTA. Have ordered it now in red with the 2.75" drawtube and really looking forward to getting it up and running! I have also ordered the Explore Scientific 24mm (68) and the 8.8mm (82) so stuff should never have looked so good given all but one of my eyepieces are cheap ones! Thanks for the advice. Ian at First Light Optics was a great help too so a big thumbs up on them. Saxon

I have had a Bresser 8" Newt for about 12 years and always hated the awful rack and pinion focuser! I'm getting back into astronomy again and want to fit a Moonlite CR2 crayford focuser to it. I have some questions, but first a picture of my scope with dimensions: I have some questions: 1. The base of my focuser at 3.5"x3.9" is bigger than the Moonlite at 2.9"x3.5" - how do I deal with this? Will I have gaping holes in my scope? 2 The travel on my focuser is 8cm (3.14") and while I don't ever recall having to wind it anywhere near all the way out for focus it looks like the longest drawtube Moonlite do is 2.75" and their normal one is 2" Do I really need such a long drawtube? Is it just a question of trying the eyepieces I use and checking how much travel they need to achive focus? If it's less than 2.75" or even 2" then I am good to go? I'd be very grateful for any replies. Kind regards, Saxon

After years of wanting a telescope and messing with binoculars around 15 years ago I bought a Bresser Messier 8" 900mm (f4.5) N203 Newtonian and had a lot of fun looking at both planets, the moon and galaxies/neubulae. Eventually I added an ioptron Gotonova Go-to to the scope and that certainly made it easier and more fun to use. The telescope came with a selection of very cheap eyepieces and these got me going but eventually I bought a Vixen Lanthaneum Ultrawide 68 degree 5mm eyepiece to give me higher quality views of the planets. It's still the only high quality eyepiece I own. I did buy an Antares W70 18mm eyepiece too but found in my fast scope it did suffer from distortion at the edges and was nowhere near as good as the Vixen Lanthaneum (and nowhere near the price!) Unfortunately due to problems with my ankle and a series of operations I haven't done astronomy for about 5 years, however I am more mobile again now and have been keen to get my scope out of storage. Imagine my horror when I retrieved the mount from the garden shed to discover a rusting hulk of metal, broken spreader, rusted optical tube clamps, broken counterweight locking knob and a Goto system that no longer powered up! The OTA itself has thankfully been stored in the house so is fine. Having considered servicing the mount I dismissed this as likely too expensive. I momentarily dreamed of buying my dream Celestron CPC 9.25 scope and junking the lot, but then I remembered that the company I work for are currently making redundancies... Anyway I spotted the new version of my Bresser Exos 2 mount with the Bresser Star Tracker Goto on sale for £499 and just purchased it for delivery later this week. I'm very excited to be getting it and have plans to put in a hollow concrete block pier on the patio to facilitate easy setup. I'm thinking of treating myself to a nice eyepiece to observe faint fuzzies and nebula and would greatly welcome some advice as the Lanthaneum covers me on planets. Can anybody recommend a nice eyepiece for the purpose with decent eye relief, decent optics to the edge of a F4.5 scope and ideally at least 68 degree FOV for under around £250? I'd particulalry welcome guidance on whether 18, 24 or even more would be best. At present I am leaning towards the Explore Scientific 68 and 82 degree range specifically: 82 degree 14, 18 or 24 (£138/£155/£225) 62 degree 20 or 24 (£120/£138) I also do not have a decent barlow ( a cheap and nasty one came with the scope). Given my 5mm Vixen gives 180x mag for planets on a 900mm scope that could be useful as I understand max mag on an 8" Newt is around 400X. If I do get a 2x barlow then is there any advantage to the 2" Explore scientific one (£138) over the 1.25" (76)? My seeing conditions are good I live in a village with no streetlights in the South Downs. Grateful for any advice, Saxon