Why are Maks so good on planets ?

[John]

11 minutes ago, Rob said:

I would imagine the Bresser Mak is a reborn Meade ETX?. I owned both the SW127 & ETX125 OTA's the ETX I had was a white tube with metal machined rear plate SCT thread. Its performance was stunning!.

The Bresser Mak is on my wish list!

Rob

Bresser and Meade have been linked since 1999. I've owned a couple of Bresser refractors that were obviously identical to Meade ones apart from the branding.

In performance, the Bresser branded ones were actually better than the Meade versions actually !

[johninderby]

Actually while Bresser and Meade were linked for a few years Bresser and Meade parted company years ago and Bresser Is now a totally seperate company. The Bresser maks are sourced in China and also sold under a few brand names. 

Edited July 24, 2019 by johninderby

[John]

A number of the better Bresser scopes used to be manufacturered by Vixen in Japan back in the 1980's. Those were the days 

[Jarvo]

I’ve got the very same one and it’s nice to see someone else championing the 150mm mak. 

I boxed mine up seeing as there are no planets I can see at the moment from the observatory. 

Mars 2020 opposition can’t come soon enough 

 

jarvo

[Trikeflyer]

On 23/07/2019 at 14:02, John said:

Just for info, the Meade mak-cassegrains (eg: the ETX range and the old Meade 7 inch mak-cass) do seem to operate at their full stated aperture. They have oversized primaries. I've not been a big fan of Meade products over the years but I have heard that the optics of their mak-cassegrains are rather good.

 

The ETX 125 was the first scope I got, I bought used. The go to mount was rubbish at goto! The focuser is typical of this type of scope - a bit sensitive and quite mushy so to speak.  I decide to defork it and mount it on a star discovery mount.  I have to say the optics are very very good indeed although I have not looked through another mak to compare it with. I’ve recently fallen back in love with this scope after dismissing it for quite some time. I use it for looking at double stars and the moon/planets. I don’t think it’s as good as the equinox 120 but it’s not the optics that let it down, its  the focuser. 

Steve 

[Roy Challen]

On 23/07/2019 at 14:02, John said:

Just for info, the Meade mak-cassegrains (eg: the ETX range and the old Meade 7 inch mak-cass) do seem to operate at their full stated aperture. They have oversized primaries. I've not been a big fan of Meade products over the years but I have heard that the optics of their mak-cassegrains are rather good.

 

I seem to recall a report comparing the ETX 90 to a Questar with the conclusion being quite favourable. Not sure how accurate that is having not looked through either,  but that is surely a good recommendation for that era of Meade Mak optical quality. 

Just found that report.

http://www.scopereviews.com/90mmComparo.html

Edited August 3, 2019 by Roy Challen

[Roy Challen]

On 24/07/2019 at 08:21, Carbon Brush said:

 

My Intes Micro MN78...
Then again at around 20Kg for the OTA, a quick scope swap to compares views is not a snap decision. It isn't grab n go!

David.

Blimey! That is heavy! Is that common to the Mak-Newt design?

Edited August 3, 2019 by Roy Challen