Experience with BRESSER Messier AR-102xs/460

Hello Mr. Kloss,

Thank you very much for the shipping and your advice in advance (it's been a while). After purchasing the small Bresser Messier ED XS 102/460 from you last year, I'm now expanding my equipment with this one.

That's a brilliant telescope, by the way! I still have a large Dobsonian 10" Galaxy, BUT the smaller Refri easily beats it in terms of sharpness and image stability. Even during daytime observations, I was almost blown away when I was able to study my neighbors' roof shingles with such brilliance, contrast, and sharpness. My Dobsonian simply can't do that, even though it's laser-aligned and I've had 20 years of experience. I can now even use my BW bino attachment without extending the glass path, with a Siebert GWK at a factor of 1. With the Dobsonian, only a minimum factor of 1.5 is sensible, but then I'm already at 70x, and the image is much darker. The chromatic aberration is very limited for my taste. I only notice it very slightly up to 80x, then it increases slightly, then strangely disappears again at very high magnifications, or even when you turn your head just a little?! That was different with my old 50/300 refractor; it increased steadily there, as was the case with my zoom binoculars. 10-30x50. Moon and planetary observations are no problem at all, but due to my equipment, I only get about 170x with the small Bresser. Well, I use it as a deluxe finder and quick-viewing scope anyway, so it's perfect for that. Stars are pinpoint and display their intrinsic colors beautifully; in a Dobsonian, they're always small crosses. People in forums often complained about this ED lens, saying it's a poor type of glass, BUT you can't forget the short focal length; even an FPL-53 was able to produce color images at f=4.5. This is supposed to be equivalent to an f=5 achromatic, but it could be that the residual chromatic aberration disappears exponentially faster than with other achromatic lenses when you stop it down. I'll test that.

In any case, you've finally infected me with refractor fever, thank you very much, Mr. Kloss!

Best regards,
Axel

Link to the BRESSER Messier AR-102xs/460 telescope:

https://www.teleskop-spezialisten.de/shop/Teleskope/Refractor/100-115mm/Bresser-Messier-AR-102xs/460-102mm-f/4-5-Kometensucher-Refractor-Teleskop-Hexafoc-OTA::2345.html