Blog post: ajb: My Telescope: Bresser Skylux NG 70-700 retractor

 

 

 

My Bresser Skylux NG 70-700 retractor

I own a small telescope, the Bresser Skylux NG 70-700 retractor. I have used it to view the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the Andromeda galaxy and the Orion Nebula. The most impressive, and I think what the telescope is best for is observing the Moon.

 

 

 

 

For your enjoyment, I have taken a few pictures of the telescope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The telescope has an aperture of 70mm and a focal length of 700mm.

 

 

I changed the original finder scope to a laser finder. The original finder scope I found to be difficult to use, it has poor focus and thus I was unable to find anything but the very brightest starts using it.

 

 

The mount is a EQ3 mount. I found the mount easy to use and quite steady.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I have already stated, I changed the finder scope to a laser finder. This does not magnify the sky, but places a clear red dot in the viewer. I find this much easier to use than the more traditional cross-hair finder scope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have used this telescope for basic astrophotography. In particular I have taken fairly good pictures of the Moon directly through the eyepiece using a rather modest digital camera.

 

 

 

 

I tend to couple this with a Moon filter which helps with the contrast and helps stop the features on the Moon getting washed out. You can find one of my Moon pictures in an older post here.

 

 

 

The telescope came with three eyepieces: 20mm, 12mm, 4mm. This gives magnifications of 35x-262x. This covers "sensible" magnifications for this telescope. Sometimes cheaper poorly made telescopes come with eyepieces that are unsuitable, this is not the case with the Skylux NG 70-700.

 

 

 

Although the telescope is quite portable I tend to use it in my back garden, which is far from a dark sky site.

 

 

 

This telescope was a Christmas present from my wife back in 2008.

 

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