Bresser MC100/1400 Mak (aka Baby Mak) 🙂

[johninderby]

My little Bresser Messier MC100/1400 mak arrived this afternoon. Wanted something smaller and lighter than a 127 Mak.

As it will be used mainly for lunar / planetary an F/14 scope will be fine Comes with the usual cheap plastic diagonal and red dot finder which are now in the bottom desk drawer filed out of the way. 😁

Build quality seems fine and a quick terrestrial test showed nice sharp optics and the focuser felt nice and smooth and was easy to get pin sharp focus.👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Fitted SW tube rings and an Astro Essentials 18cm dovetail bar. For a change on a Bresser the finder shoe had the same mounting hole spacing as a SW finder shoe. 👍🏻 For now am using the 6x30 finder from the ScopeTech. Fits OK using a SW bracket but as I use my right eye for observing got in the way slightly so used a short 1.25” extension on the diagonal. Waiting for an ETX adapter to arrive so I can fit a T2 visual back with compression ring.

Didn’t realise when I bought it that a solar filter was included. Screws onto the front so nice and secure. 

Hopefully it looks like will have first light later this week. 🙏🏼

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by johninderby

[johninderby]

And on the Manfrotto 405 head for a really light setup. 🙂

[sputniksteve]

Very nice. I look forward to first light review.

[JeremyS]

Is that a Berlebach picnic table outside, John?

[johninderby]

Ha ha. 😁

No but it is a very nice teak table. 👍🏻

Edited August 4, 2020 by johninderby

[johninderby]

First (sun) light.

Had a chance to try it with the provided solar filter. Not bad at all but the filter uses the thick film that gives the sun a yellow colour. Not as good as Baader film but still quite serviceable. Won’t be replacing my StellaMira 80 with solar wedge anytime soon but would give the beginner an intro to solar observing. 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by johninderby

[Alkaid]

Looks good. Can’t wait to hear how it performs on the Moon.

[johninderby]

Woke up about 4:00 this morning looked outside and could see the moon. So set the scope up and opened one of the bedroom windows. The  outside temp wasn't much different to the inside temp. Some light clouds around and seeing wasn’t that stable but no real problems. 

Spent about half an hour observing and trying different eyepieces and found the 16mm Nirvana gave the best views. Nice and sharp contrasty images. The 7mm Nirvana did show more detail but image was softer but should be ideal with better seeing. The Nagler 3-6 zoom was definately too much in this f/14 scope. Not a surprise.😁

I was using the Baader neodymium filter which is my favourite filter but had picked up one of the cheapie Solomark Moon & Skyglow filters to see if an £8.95 filter could be any good. Well the Solomark filter was actually not too bad. Image was brighter than the Baader and not as much contrast but gave a nice neutral grey image. Would definately recommend the filter if you are looking for a cheap alternative to the Baader. 👍🏻

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by johninderby