FIRST LIGHT
objects to observe. Construction-wise, the emphasis is on lightweight materials throughout, making it a good ‘grab and go’ instrument to encourage beginners to leave the city lights and head for a dark observing site.
Observations
We used the AR-80/640 Nano to observe a range of objects, a couple of which have been tricky to see from our fixed observatory location this year because they’ve been too low on our tree-lined southern horizon. But the AR80/640 Nano scope is so light and hassle-free that it allowed us to observe both Mars and Saturn simply by moving the whole setup to suitable positions in the garden. We located the two planets using the 26mm eyepiece supplied, clearly observing Saturn’s rings, then enjoyed more close-up views using 8mm and 5mm eyepieces.
Views of the Moon were also very good with only a tiny amount of chromatic aberration visible on the limb. We then turned to deep-sky objects and observed M13, M92, M31, Albireo, Vega, the Double Cluster, M103, M45 and finally Orion, in the early morning. We used Vega as our optical test star and found excellent star shapes out to just over 80 per cent of the field of view using the 26mm eyepiece.
The setup includes an eyepiece mounting for a smartphone and we used this to capture some images of the Moon using an Apple iPhone 5S, the 26mm eyepiece and the volume control button on our headphones as a shutter release. The individual images were then stacked in AutoStakkert! to produce a final image that any beginner would be delighted with. We did, however, find that the elastic retaining strap that was supposed to hold the smartphone in place had a tendency to slide off the mount’s oval surface. Overall, however, we were very pleasantly surprised at how well the Bresser Messier AR-80/640 Nano performed and would certainly recommend it to astronomy newcomers or anyone looking for a lightweight, easy-to-set-up telescope to supplement a more advanced system.