Bresser or SW Mak?

[BlueAstra]

Bresser and SW both do 127 and 150 Maksutovs, with the SW being a bit cheaper. Does anyone have any views on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two brands, and which to go for? Are there any other Mak brands I should be looking at?

[mikeDnight]

I'd go for the SW Maksutov every time! SkyWatcher as a brand have a very good reputation and Bresser not so good by comparison. I've used numerous SW Maksutov's and I've not yet seen a bad one. Personally I have a real soft spot for the SW 127 Mak as its so light and portable, yet packs a punch when needed.

Mike

[alacant]

Hi. Bresser: You deal directly with the manufacturer who carries spares and replacements in Europe. They answer messages the same day. You can speak to them on the phone. They sort out problems no matter how small they may be. Just my experience and of course YMMV.  HTH.

[John]

I'd go Skywatcher as well - just read the reviews of their maks over the years and from folks like Neil English who really know what they are talking about

 

 

[laudropb]

I have a SW 127 Mak and it is a lovely scope to use. I can not think of any reason to pay the extra for the Bresser.

[Cosmic Geoff]

Celestron do a 127mm Mak, which seems to be the same as the Sky-watcher except for the paint. This does not exhaust the list of brands. I assume they are all made in the same Chinese Synta factory, and if the specs are the same, they should perform the same. So you can choose on the basis of preferred brand and after-sales service.

Needless to say, I think my 127 Celestron Mak is great.

[Cornelius Varley]

30 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Celestron do a 127mm Mak, which seems to be the same as the Sky-watcher except for the paint. This does not exhaust the list of brands. I assume they are all made in the same Chinese Synta factory, and if the specs are the same, they should perform the same. So you can choose on the basis of preferred brand and after-sales service.

Needless to say, I think my 127 Celestron Mak is great.

Synta owns Celestron and Skywatcher (many of Celestron's smaller telescopes historically were manufactured by Synta), but not Bresser. Bresser are owned by JOC (Guangzhou Jinghua Optics & Electronics ) who also own Explore Scientific.

[BlueAstra]

Thanks for the comments. Does the 150 have any significant advantage over the 127 (considering the 150 is twice the cost of the 127)? Should I buy two 127 instead of the 150 for the world's biggest binoculars !

[John]

Just now, BlueAstra said:

Thanks for the comments. Does the 150 have any significant advantage over the 127 (considering the 150 is twice the cost of the 127)? Should I buy two 127 instead of the 150 for the world's biggest binoculars !

Neither operate at quite the full aperture stated (probably more like 120mm and 140mm respectively) because of the optical design used but the additional aperture will always provide a brighter image of DSO's and a little more resolution at the expense of a little more cool down time for the larger aperture. Whether the additional cost is justified is a personal decision of course.

[Chris]

2 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I'd go for the SW Maksutov every time! SkyWatcher as a brand have a very good reputation and Bresser not so good by comparison. I've used numerous SW Maksutov's and I've not yet seen a bad one. Personally I have a real soft spot for the SW 127 Mak as its so light and portable, yet packs a punch when needed.

Mike

I don't know about the Maks but I can tell you from experience I'd pick a Bresser achro over a Skywatcher achro from examples of each I've owned, although there is a chance that I could have had bad examples of the Skywatcher and a very good example of the Bresser.

Thinking about it, even if you had the Bresser and Skywatcher maks side by side to see which is best, QC does have error bars in this price bracket so you still cant be sure!

I've never looked through a bad Mak though, taking on board the touch of flaring you can get with them, that's about the only fault I've found   

I'll shut up now 

Edited March 22, 2017 by Chris Lock

[mikeDnight]

25 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

I don't know about the Maks but I can tell you from experience I'd pick a Bresser achro over a Skywatcher achro from examples of each I've owned, although there is a chance that I could have had bad examples of the Skywatcher and a very good example of the Bresser.

Thinking about it, even if you had the Bresser and Skywatcher maks side by side to see which is best, QC does have error bars in this price bracket so you still cant be sure!

I've never looked through a bad Mak though, taking on board the touch of flaring you can get with them, that's about the only fault I've found   

I'll shut up now 

I'd agree whole heartedly with regard to your comments about the SW achromats Chris. A friend of mine bought a 120 F8.3 brand new and it was grossly overcorrected and had severe spherical aberration. He sent it straight back and got a replacement which was just as bad. The same happened a third time and the vendor said "Well what do you expect for your money?" my friend replied "I expect it to work!" He got his money back! I think whoever produces the achro's for Synta have lost heart. Their ED's though are another story, and can give the best apo's a run for their money, and SW Maksutov's are excellent! 

Mike

Edited March 22, 2017 by mikeDnight

[alacant]

18 minutes ago, Chris Lock said:

I'd pick a Bresser achro over a Skywatcher achro

+1

[CraigT82]

I've had exactly the same choice to make recently, Bresser 152 mak or Skywatcher 150.

On paper the bresser looks good, includes tube rings and also uses a crayford focusser (I'm not sure if the primary mirror is fixed or not). 

In the end I went for the SW as it's qualities are well documented. The only stuff I could find on the bresser was a review on here by Parallaxer (I think), he ended up sending it back as he was disappointed with it optically. 

BTW most maksutovs don't operate at quite their full aperture, not due to undersized primaries (certainly the SW maks have sufficiently oversized mirrors) but due to overly tight baffling. On the skywatchers the secondary baffle vignettes the light path slightly. I've read that this is to improve the out of focus star image, as with the baffle removed the out of focus image look horrible (very different eitger side of focus) due to the changing FL inherent with a moving mirror design, though apparently the in focus star image is still spot on.

Edited March 22, 2017 by CraigT82

[Dave In Vermont]

SW Maks are made by Synta, as are Orion, Celestron, and another one or two. And they are excellent! They hold collimation like a champion. Very strong construction. And excellent optics and peripherals.

I have their 150mm F12 Black-Diamond Maksutov. I'm thrilled with it! And very glad I added it to my fleet.

Have fun -

Dave

 

 

[parallaxerr]

33 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

In the end I went for the SW as it's qualities are well documented. The only stuff I could find on the bresser was a review on here by Parallaxer (I think), he ended up sending it back as he was disappointed with it optically. 

Correct. I was not impressed with the optics and found my ED80 was giving stronger views of the planets, although, admittedly, perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance.

I also questioned the build quality with some dodgy looking rubber seal around the objective & poor English text on the objective ring. Also, I found the Hex focus very stiff. Nothing majorly wrong in the grand scheme of things but I didn't feel the product was worth what I paid for it (and I got it cheaper than it retails now).

[nightfisher]

Skywatcher all the way, only beaten by Intes Maksutov

[John]

I've owned 1 good Bresser scope in recent years - a older type 127mm F/9.3 achromat which I believe was made by the same manufacturer who made the Meade AR5. The scopes are identical as I found when I purchased a mint AR5 a year or so later. The AR5 was a mediocre performer though wheras the older Bresser branded one was very good indeed. 

Many, many years ago I owned a superb scope with the Bresser branding on it - it was made by Vixen in Japan and was a re-badged version of their superb SP102M refractor. Different league to the Bresser stuff of today I suspect.

 

 

 

[Dave In Vermont]

One things that I've noticed, based on the reports from many other people and my personal experiences: When Skywatcher was told about such issues as the poor focusers, endemic to Maksutovs a few years ago, with resulting mirror-flop, they listened. Soon after the SW focusers were buttery-smooth and mirror-flop/slop had vanished! Note the picture of my 150mm above? I "upgraded" it with a 10:1 Crayford focuser. But I needn't have bothered - mine arrived with the new focuser and it didn't need the assist!

Another former issue was the non-standard size of the threads on the visual-backs, making an adapter necessary to add various components. SW heard the concerns and that problem vanished too!

Skywatcher is an outfit that listens, and acts, on the customers' desires & concerns. With Synta quite willing to customize to Skywatcher's specifications.

Top that!

Dave - who doesn't own stock in SW or Synta (yet! )

[recceranger]

Go MAK!  I have the 150 and it's superb.  Great on DSO such as Globulars and if you use a 40 - 50mm WA EP it give excellent views on the likes of M42.

On lunar and planetary observations and AP you will be more than happy

[nfotis]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I am wondering if the latest Bresser 152/1900 Hexafoc and the iOptron/Bosma 150 Maks are better than the Skymax 150?

Own an old Skymax 127 at the moment, and I am thinking about going one step larger (HEQ5 mount).

The Skymax 180 seems too much (and I own a C9.25 already).

N.F.