BRESSER 40mm Eyepiece 60 ° 5 Elements

[Captain Caveman]

Anyone got one of these BRESSER 40mm Eyepiece 60 ° 5 Elements 2" eyepieces. Just seen a price that looks very good and wonder if it's worth getting, I had been looking at the Panaview 32mm and similar for my SW 200p, currently only have the 25mm and 10mm plossl, a Bst 8mm and I enjoy the wide field plus would like a good finder EP. I have pretty dark skies too

[rwilkey]

Hi there, that's an interesting find at a good price, the 5 element plossl is usually regarded as the 'super' plossl, I believe.  I for one would be interested to hear any reviews.  I notice it does not have a safety undercut on the barrel though its 542g weight should not upset too many telescopes.  On the other ep you mention I have some experience, the PanaView 32mm is a great ep and the first 'upgrade' I ever bought and I am dead impressed with its performance at f/5 in my 200P, great and stunning on-axis views but suffers a bit of astigmatism at the edges, which for me, is negated by the superb overall performance.  

[Captain Caveman]

I've seen many of your posts waxing lyrical about the Panaview which is probably how it ended up top of my budget wide field list. I'd love to go to 70' or 80' but the costs seem exponential and I was only suppposed to buy the Dob as a starter and see how much use it gets, so trying to avoid spending the same again in eyepieces!

Currently looking at a few items on ebay and astrobuysell, but good low mag EPs seems quite rare, and there are many mixed reviews about Revelations and Ascensions for my f6 - also looked at the Opticstar 2" XS 70' but cant find any reviews, and assuming its just a rebrand

[rwilkey]

Hi Captain, the fact that you cannot find any reviews on the Opticstar 2" XS 70 is not a good indication, and its price is also a little low for this class of eyepiece.  When we buy a telescope, we often say 'that's it,' but in truth many of us spend a lot more than the telescope cost in the first place!  I have bought many of my eyepieces on the second-hand market with my criteria being that it must be around half-price of the new item.  So second-hand is a good way to go, I have always had an excellent experience and all my purchases have been in pristine condition. 

[Charic]

I tried TeleView's Delos range for the wider views, but found them no better than my Starguiders with respect to the size and details of the image I was viewing. The view itself was wider, but what I was looking at looked the same. Well in fact no!  some targets, the Moon, looks smaller in such a vast sea of space.
I therefore decided that my Starguiders were as good as it's going to get, so I'm staying with the 60° afov format, which suits my viewing requirement.
My one and only two inch fitting EP the 32mm Panaview works well, as a finder or just as a wide field, scanning the heavens.

Your 8mm BST is a good replacement for the supplied 10mm , and the 25m works  just fine, but was not wide enough for me on one occasion  when trying to take in M31 from a darker sky, so bought the Panaview for that reason.

A 12mm BST is a  very good eyepiece, matching the  scopes ( Skyliner 200P) focal ratio if 2x Barlowed  giving 200x power, which the scope is more than capable of producing, and if just used as a 12mm,  the image detail, although smaller, is sharper, given the right conditions.

I've even contemplated buying another 12mm BST and permanently fitting a 2x Barlow cell to the eyepiece, giving me the BST 6mm I so desire ( they don't make one to be  honest but the 6mm would 'complete' my personal set ).

Calculate/measure the entry  pupil for your eye, and multiply by the focal ratio to find a ball park figure for your wide field eyepiece. Given mine rounded up is 5, then I should look at something around the 30mm focal length for a wide field EP, the 32mm Panaview is what I have. Go too long in the focal length with a reflector and you'll see things that  you shouldn't normally see like floaters and the scopes spider assembly?

[Captain Caveman]

Well seeing as there was no reason not to, I've gone and bought 2 eyepieces. Can't quite understand how they are doing such a massive discount of 77% but I've just bought the 40mm for £30 and had to get the 20mm for £15 as well - £45 for 2 60degree Bresser eyepieces, delivered!

UK shops are still selling them for £130

Hope they work out well and here is the link for anyone else https://www.optical-systems.co.uk/en/Astronomy/Telescope-accessories/Eyepieces/BRESSER-40mm-Eyepiece-60-5-Elements-50-8mm-2.html who fancies a huge bargain

[alan potts]

Don't wish to pour water on this but tested the Meade version of this. Before they ended up as Bresser they were part of the Meade seires 5000 range, well at least the same element arrangement was, it was 5 element Super Plossl that came in 5.5mm, 9mm, 14mm, 20mm, 26mm and 32mm as well as the size we are talking about. I had all of them apart from the 40mm. I was taken by surprise when I did see one of how big it was. It was not a bad performer at F10 in my SC 12inch scope but in my M/N 190mm at F 5.3 it was awful at the edges, maybe the last 25% had bad to even worse aberations of a type I could not work out, all I knew was it was not coma from a mirror.

[Charic]

Thats a massive discount so I went and had a look  myself at a Bresser 40mm, but when you added your link,  something rang my bell, as these two items are completely different externally? 
Both  links appear to depict a 40mm Bresser Plössl.

https://www.optical-systems.co.uk/en/Astronomy/Telescope-accessories/Eyepieces/BRESSER-40mm-Eyepiece-60-5-Elements-50-8mm-2.html

https://www.telescopehouse.com/bresser-pl-40mm-60-2-00-inch.html

 

[emadmoussa]

Thank for pointing that out. I've just ordered one. I've got a Meade 40" super plossl, but it's 1.25" and 44-deg, as opposed to the Bresser 2" 60-deg. 

[alan potts]

1 hour ago, Charic said:

Thats a massive discount so I went and had a look  myself at a Bresser 40mm, but when you added your link,  something rang my bell, as these two items are completely different externally? 
Both  links appear to depict a 40mm Bresser Plössl.

https://www.optical-systems.co.uk/en/Astronomy/Telescope-accessories/Eyepieces/BRESSER-40mm-Eyepiece-60-5-Elements-50-8mm-2.html

https://www.telescopehouse.com/bresser-pl-40mm-60-2-00-inch.html

 

For what it's worth when my friend in Sofia, who was the Meade dealer at the time showed me which way the Bresser/Meade/exsc were going, Telly House are showing the picture that the Meade Ser 5000 40mm became. I have never seen the other one. That not of course to say it hasn't been given another set of clothes though. They were fairly pricey when Meade marketed them but this dates back a few years now, 2009 maybe.

Alan

[Louis D]

58 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Don't wish to pour water on this but tested the Meade version of this. Before they ended up as Bresser they were part of the Meade seires 5000 range, well at least the same element arrangement was, it was 5 element Super Plossl that came in 5.5mm, 9mm, 14mm, 20mm, 26mm and 32mm as well as the size we are talking about. I had all of them apart from the 40mm. I was taken by surprise when I did see one of how big it was. It was not a bad performer at F10 in my SC 12inch scope but in my M/N 190mm at F 5.3 it was awful at the edges, maybe the last 25% had bad to even worse aberations of a type I could not work out, all I knew was it was not coma from a mirror.

Indeed.  The original version of the Bresser 40mm is spec'ed to weigh 560g which is exactly the same as my decloaked 40mm Meade 5000 Plossl (705g with cloak).  Decloaked, it has a 43mm eye lens yielding 29mm of usable eye relief.  I measured the AFOV to be 60 degrees and the eAFOV to be 61 degrees based on a calculated field stop of 42.3mm from reading off a yardstick at a distance and doing the math.  Technically, I should be able to measure the FS directly, but it's too far up inside the barrel for my calipers to reach it without disassembly, and I'm not going to risk it.  Interestingly enough, the 30mm ES-82 has a calculated FS from measurements of 42.4mm, so almost identical TFOV, just at a higher power and wider AFOV.

It's not bad at f/12 in my Mak, but it's still no Panoptic or even Meade 5000 SWA or ES-68.  As Alan says, the outer 25% to 30% starts to fall apart quite badly at f/6.  I think it's due to astigmatism more than field curvature because refocusing didn't improve matters at all.  Out of focus stars were definitely astigmatic.  However, I could not detect any image distortion as the moon was panned from edge to edge.  It remained perfectly circular.  The fact that the AFOV and eAFOV are nearly identical would seem to confirm this.

Edges aside, the center view in it is fantastic.  The correction is phenomenal with pinpoint stars on an inky black background.  The center is far sharper than the 30mm ES-82 and perhaps sharper than the 40mm Meade 5000 SWA.  The exit pupil is easy to find and hold despite the massive eye relief.  I never notice any blackouts or finickiness in the view.  If you look straight ahead at the center, the edge can be ignored and you'll be happy with the eyepiece.

I paid about $60 used for mine some time ago, so 29,99 € is a very reasonable price for one.  That's 1.25" 4 element Plossl territory.  It would at least make an excellent outreach eyepiece if you find you don't like it.

Ultimately, I prefer the decloaked 40mm Meade 5000 SWA because it has a wider TFOV (45.7mm FS), AFOV (71 degrees), eAFOV (65 degrees), and is basically sharp to the edge.  It also has 29mm of usable eye relief and has a very stable exit pupil.  It does weigh 874g decloaked, but it's worth the rebalancing and price.  It does distort the moon into an egg shape quite noticeably at the edge, though.

[Charic]

6 minutes ago, alan potts said:

That not of course to say it hasn't been given another set of clothes though.

Thats a possibility.
Perhaps the massive discount is a way of moving older stock, and at the end of the day, if they work and the user is happy, why not.

[Captain Caveman]

Interestingly the picture of the EP I bought is the exact same picture as found here on the Bresser website, still selling for 129 euros, and there are strong links between, Meade, Bresser, Explore Scientific and JOC. In fact the Optical-systems website is strangely similar to the Bresser, even calculating the delivery in the same way, and the website/ shop is owned by Explore Scientific. (in fact same address as Bresser!)

Anyway, I've got my fingers crossed for a 30quid gamble

[emadmoussa]

1 hour ago, Captain Caveman said:

Interestingly the picture of the EP I bought is the exact same picture as found here on the Bresser website, still selling for 129 euros, and there are strong links between, Meade, Bresser, Explore Scientific and JOC. In fact the Optical-systems website is strangely similar to the Bresser, even calculating the delivery in the same way, and the website/ shop is owned by Explore Scientific. (in fact same address as Bresser!)

Anyway, I've got my fingers crossed for a 30quid gamble

If they're as good as the Meade 40mm Plossl, then you got yourself a winner with more field of view. Also, I can full-heartedly vouch for Explore Scientific eyepieces. 

[Captain Caveman]

Just had an amazing night of viewing, not sure I'm qualified to do a full review but its an enormous amount of very clear and crisp glass for 30 Euros.

Spent several hours outside with a friend, waiting for family to turn all the lights out. Used the new 40mm Bresser and 20mm as well as my BST 8mm.

How much can you cram into one night? Naked eye Geminids by the dozen, I managed to find 46p with the new 40mm and got to sharpen it up to a fairly concentrated bright centre, spent ages enjoying Orion nebula through a variety of eyepieces, Pleiades too and then we tried Andromeda. My friend thought he could see a faint fuzzy patch near Cassiopeia but when looking around I couldn't find it but found a lovely double cluster. Realised we were looking in the wrong area for M31 and eventually found it and it is lovely through the 40mm which seemed to give a real sense of shape and perspective to M31. In general the stars do seem pretty sharp to the edges, the 20mm from Bresser is also very nice and crisp and certainly better than the SW plossls supplied (and only £15!) My main issue with the 40mm was the need to locate your eye in a fairly tight area to get the full view, its just a nose/ cheek balance for me but it doesn't have a long range before it kidney-beans which can be annoying but otherwise it is really nice and solidly built. Its actually the exact design on the telescope house site and not the one as shown on the Bresser site 

I'd say the view and experience was nicer than the view I got from my BST in both of those EPs

If there are any beginners looking to build up their eyepiece selection then I'd highly recommend buying the 40mm and 20mm at the same time £45 delivered from Germany for 2 very decent EPs

[Louis D]

Look what pops up for 40mm Bresser Plossl for 29,00 € now.  I wonder if it was a case of mistaken identity on their part.