A new refractor

[Jiggy 67]

I have always used reflectors but I fancy the idea of widening my horizons and buying a refractor, initially for visual observations but with a view to doing a bit of AP when I retire in 18 months. My preference is DSO, of all descriptions, double stars and planets (everything really) so it needs to be a bit of an all rounder and around the £500 mark. It would be on an EQ6 R Pro and be used, mostly, with the Morpheus range of eye pieces. I am considering this:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bresser-telescopes/bresser-messier-ar-152s-760-refractor-ota.html
 

What do the refractor experts think of this scope? Is it a good choice? Any comments/advice welcome 

 

[Alkaid]

Visually at low power, it will be a very nice deep sky scope at a dark site.  Will have nice pin point stars, show globs and nebula well.

At high power, Moon & Planets, it's a differing story....the large achromatic objective combined with the short focal length will give quite a lot of false colour.  That may (or may not) bother you.  However, if the lens figure is good, you'll still get good resolution and contrast.  The view will be smeared with some blue haze from the false colour.  

I'm no imager, but this scope will not suit for AP.  The achromatic objective will give some star 'bloat' and blue haze around the stars in the image.

 

To sum it up, that scope is a visual, dark sky, DSO hunter killer.  

 

[Timebandit]

 

Hello. Mixing a scope for visual and AP does not usually work well on your budget.

For AP then the SW 80ED is a very popular and well regarded scope in this range, and you could do a bit of visual.

But for visual a SW 100ED or a second hand SW120ED would be my recommendations.

Hope this helps 

 

 

 

[Jiggy 67]

Thanks for your help, I’ll have to give it some thought. Visual obs will override AP so both of your answers have merit 🥺😩

[Martthebass]

Like above, I’d probably go for an ED doublet of good quality around the 100mm mark . If you select a slightly longer focal length it should be great on planets and doubles but also have enough aperture for the brighter DSOs at a dark site.

[Alien 13]

Looking at your signature you already have a 200PDS with a focal length of 1M so I would opt for something around 400mm focal length to compliment it, a 70mm ish ED refractor would fit the bill perfectly..

Alan 

[Jiggy 67]

Do you ever wish you hadn’t asked the question cos I’m in a real quandary now. 😀 Your advice has got me torn between the SW Evostar 80 ED and the 100 ED. I feel that I need the extra aperture for visual as I live under light polluted skies and DSO’s are a big part of my observations . However, the wider fov of the 80 is appealing. I can stretch to the 100 if it will be a big improvement over the 80 .  

Edited September 16, 2020 by Jiggy 67

[Martthebass]

That’s a tricky one J, if you really want planets and doubles then magnification is key and Wide field isn’t. Whichever, I’d go 100mm if you want some DSO as well. I use a WO GT71 and don’t consider it a visual scope though granted I think it’s lower FL than the SW ED80. Enjoy the decision making, that’s half the fun.