Bresser Messier N150 review

The Bresser Messier N150 reflector is a functional and smart setup.

It comes with the Messier MON2 mount attached to a sturdy tripod with rigid, tubular steel legs.

There are three eyepieces – 25mm, 15mm and 10mm – giving a good range of magnification from 48x to 120x.

Also supplied is a 2x Barlow.

An 8x50 straight-through finderscope with an illuminated LED reticule completes the system.

The mount was very smooth in action with little play in either of its axes.

It also includes a polarscope with an illuminated reticule – a nice touch for a basic system – which helped us align the scope.

The locking knobs were chunky, providing a good grip even in the cold.

The tripod was the firmest on test, giving good support to the setup, and when accidentally knocked any vibrations quickly died down.

The objective mirror has a long focal length of 1,200mm, which gives a focal ratio of f/8 when divided by the mirror’s diameter of 150mm.

This does mean the field of view appears smaller than with shorter focal length scopes, and in theory slightly dimmer.

However, the views were good with our chosen range of targets.

We used the supplied 25mm eyepiece on the star Capella to gauge the quality of the field of view.

The star was pin-sharp across just over 85 per cent of the view with some slight distortion towards the field edges 90 per cent of the way out; impressive!

We noted a faint halo around bright stars and indeed even Jupiter, when using the 25mm eyepiece.

We used our own equivalent eyepiece and the halo disappeared, indicating that the supplied eyepiece scatters a little light.

On fainter objects the effect was minor though, so not all views were compromised.

Detailed views

Jupiter displayed its two main belts plus all four Galilean satellites using the 25mm eyepiece.

Cranking up the magnification improved the view to the extent that the sky conditions would allow, with scalloped edges and plumes spotted along the planet’s north equatorial belt.

Turning the scope on the Moon revealed plenty of detail along its terminator.

Deep-sky views were equally enjoyable.

With the 25mm eyepiece the Andromeda Galaxy was too large to view in one go, so we used our own 36mm Plössl eyepiece, which gave reasonable views.

Using the supplied eyepieces again, the Pleiades star cluster filled the field with bright stars and a glimpse of the Merope Nebula.

The Orion Nebula was mottled with detail and, cranking up the magnification, we glimpsed the four main stars of the Trapezium cluster at its centre and two fainter stars with averted vision.

The galaxies M81 and M82 fitted in the view of the 25mm, and M82 was quite mottled along its disc when using higher magnification.

Our final resolution test involved splitting the bright multiple star Castor (a separation of 4 arcseconds), which we managed even with the low power of the 25mm eyepiece.

Overall, this scope was a joy to use.

This review first appeared as part of a Group Test in the March 2010 issue of Sky at Night Magazine