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New? Bresser Mini Dobs


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Looks nice but I'm struggling to see it as other than a usual 6" F5 Dob apart from half the rocker box missing, not going to improve the stability. What I would like to see is an upmarket version of the, already good, SW Heritage 114 Virtuoso as a travel scope. :icon_biggrin:

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54 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

I don't like the look of that secondary spider, and the focuser looks suspiciously similar to the cheap one they put on the <100mm fracs.

I've had the 90/1250 Bresser refractor in the flesh, and the focuser plus many other parts of the scope are plastic (or synthetic material as Bresser calls it). It's hard to tell if this is cost cutting or the way of the future but I personally prefer metal scopes. In hindsight though there is no doubt that the optics were good for the money and I think that's what Bresser's aim is. good optics for not much money, and it's hard to argue with that. 

I've just got enough astronomy years behind me that I appreciate a bit of build quality, but this obviously comes at a price.....which I can't afford :grin:

 

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11 minutes ago, Lockie said:

but this obviously comes at a price.....which I can't afford :grin:

Chris, I think that applies to many things for many of us on here.
You know what quality you desire, but you also know how far the wallet will stretch, very rarely do the two connect!

As to the focuser, its not the hex unit and does look perhaps to be synthetic.

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1 minute ago, Alan White said:

Chris, I think that applies to many things for many of us on here.
You know what quality you desire, but you also know how far the wallet will stretch, very rarely do the two connect!

As to the focuser, its not the hex unit and does look perhaps to be synthetic.

Very neatly put, Alan :) 

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53 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

Looks nice but I'm struggling to see it as other than a usual 6" F5 Dob apart from half the rocker box missing, not going to improve the stability. What I would like to see is an upmarket version of the, already good, SW Heritage 114 Virtuoso as a travel scope. :icon_biggrin:

Yeah, I think those little 1145p newts are a lot better than most people give them credit for.

51 minutes ago, Lockie said:

I've had the 90/1250 Bresser refractor in the flesh, and the focuser plus many other parts of the scope are plastic (or synthetic material as Bresser calls it). It's hard to tell if this is cost cutting or the way of the future but I personally prefer metal scopes. In hindsight though there is no doubt that the optics were good for the money and I think that's what Bresser's aim is. good optics for not much money, and it's hard to argue with that. 

I've just got enough astronomy years behind me that I appreciate a bit of build quality, but this obviously comes at a price.....which I can't afford :grin:

 

I think it is cost cutting in the sense that people probably expect some sort of proportionality between size and cost. If they put the same focuser etc on the smallest models there won't be a large enough difference in cost and they will appear overpriced. However, as someone who bought the excellent 8" over the equivalent Skywatcher model on the basis of build quality, it is disappointing to see Bresser scrimp on a few key details.

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4 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

 as someone who bought the excellent 8" over the equivalent Skywatcher model on the basis of build quality, it is disappointing to see Bresser scrimp on a few key details.

I think I've seen you mention some little niggles with your 8" Dob, if you don't mind sharing, what are it's weak areas?

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27 minutes ago, Lockie said:

I think I've seen you mention some little niggles with your 8" Dob, if you don't mind sharing, what are it's weak areas?

I think my dob came from the first production run so there is always the possibility that some of these issues may have been resolved so In no particular order:

  1. It is £400 vs £300 for the 8" SW Skyliner
  2. The alt bearings run on Teflon pads and there is a tendency with both the Bresser and ES dobs using this design that the heads of the screws holding them in haven't all been sunk below the surface. You need to check this during assembly to avoid damaging the runners the first time you use it.
  3. In theory the use of tube rings allows the scope to be shifted up or down for balance. However, the rocker box is only just high enough for the balance position using the scope as it comes out of the box. When I bought a 9x50 RACI (from you I might add :) ) I had to build a small riser section to allow it to be moved back in the rings without hitting the nut/bolt that forms the azimuth bearing. Luckily Bresser put twice as many of the "furniture fixings" in the box as I needed so it was fairly simple to reuse the existing fixing points. 
  4. The supplied RDF is mounted via a non-standard push fit shoe. I had to drill new holes to fit a Synta shoe and I wouldn't be surprised if a Meade shoe fitting also needs holes drilled. Note that the newer 10" comes with an optical finder and standard Meade shoes fitted to the OTA.
  5. The supplied RDF is also quite wobbly because there is so much backlash in the adjustment screws. It does, however, have a nice range of brightness variation and it is still on the scope so it can't be that bad.
  6. The 2" eyepiece clamp on the Hexafoc is only 12mm thick, the central 8mm of which is the compression ring. This means that an eyepiece or 2"-1.25" adaptor without smooth sides can be tilted off axis when tightening the screws. Thankfully, it can be unscrewed from the focuser and so I got Baader to make an adaptor ring so that I could fit a 2" clicklock directly onto the drawtube.
  7. As is probably the case with all Chinese mirrors, the edge of the mirror is turned down which results in glare when observing bright objects (i.e planets). I made a baffle from black card that i mounted on top of the mirror clips that has cut this out. The turned down section is not included in the nominal 203mm diameter so I haven't really lost any aperture doing this.
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9 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

I think my dob came from the first production run so there is always the possibility that some of these issues may have been resolved so In no particular order:

  1. It is £400 vs £300 for the 8" SW Skyliner
  2. The alt bearings run on Teflon pads and there is a tendency with both the Bresser and ES dobs using this design that the heads of the screws holding them in haven't all been sunk below the surface. You need to check this during assembly to avoid damaging the runners the first time you use it.
  3. In theory the use of tube rings allows the scope to be shifted up or down for balance. However, the rocker box is only just high enough for the balance position using the scope as it comes out of the box. When I bought a 9x50 RACI (from you I might add :) ) I had to build a small riser section to allow it to be moved back in the rings without hitting the nut/bolt that forms the azimuth bearing. Luckily Bresser put twice as many of the "furniture fixings" in the box as I needed so it was fairly simple to reuse the existing fixing points. 
  4. The supplied RDF is mounted via a non-standard push fit shoe. I had to drill new holes to fit a Synta shoe and I wouldn't be surprised if a Meade shoe fitting also needs holes drilled. Note that the newer 10" comes with an optical finder and standard Meade shoes fitted to the OTA.
  5. The supplied RDF is also quite wobbly because there is so much backlash in the adjustment screws. It does, however, have a nice range of brightness variation and it is still on the scope so it can't be that bad.
  6. The 2" eyepiece clamp on the Hexafoc is only 12mm thick, the central 8mm of which is the compression ring. This means that an eyepiece or 2"-1.25" adaptor without smooth sides can be tilted off axis when tightening the screws. Thankfully, it can be unscrewed from the focuser and so I got Baader to make an adaptor ring so that I could fit a 2" clicklock directly onto the drawtube.
  7. As is probably the case with all Chinese mirrors, the edge of the mirror is turned down which results in glare when observing bright objects (i.e planets). I made a baffle from black card that i mounted on top of the mirror clips that has cut this out. The turned down section is not included in the nominal 203mm diameter so I haven't really lost any aperture doing this.

Wow, nice critique and that's some good feedback. Many of the above issues seem at least cheap for a manufacturer to fix?

All Bresser scope seem to have that weird finder shoe thing going on, I'm guessing so you buy their finders perhaps? 

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53 minutes ago, Lockie said:

All Bresser scope seem to have that weird finder shoe thing going on, I'm guessing so you buy their finders perhaps? 

I suspect you're thinking of the standard Meade shoe. This is completely unique to the Bresser 8" dob so far as I can tell. However, I suspect the the rail at the top of the foot would allow me to fit a different rdf to the foot if I wished. 

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