Fabulous complete astronomy starter kit - now only £139.99 featuring the Bresser 114 high power Newtonian(114mm x 900mm) reflecting telescope and a host of accessories to get anyone, young or old, started in the fascinating hobby of astronomy!

Generations of amateur astronomers have started and progressed their hobby with a classical Newtonian reflector like the Bresser 114.

The Bresser 114 is a superb scope to get started in astronomy and progress onward to more ambitious views and projects (astro-photography etc). (The 114 is vastly better than my first 2" scope! James SnS) The Bresser 114 has a superb 114mm large aperture primary mirror and comes supplied with a well-engineered German equatorial EQ-Sky mounting (see photo)with fully geared manual slow-motion hand controls on each axis and a rigid steel full height field tripod (just the tripod and mount is amazing and looks like it would cost £150 on its own!).

We can't praise the Bresser 114 equatorial mount enough. Equatorial mounting is the best way to mount this type of telescope, for high powered viewing the facility to compensate for the rotation of the Earth by turning just one knob is truly invaluable. We've been selling refracting telescope like this for years and this version of the Bresser EQ-Sky mount is probably the best one we've ever seen at this price! (see photo)

Supplied with the unique 114 kit are three excellent eyepieces - 4mm, 9mm, and 25mm (see item 1 in photo and below for full specification) giving a useful range of magnifications from high to medium and lower power (wide-angle).

Moon filter (item 7) Included with the eyepiece set is a pale blue filter that can be attached to all eyepieces for reducing the brightness of the moon and allow more detail to be seen.

The instruction manual (item 9 - in well-written English!) is illustrated, and if this is not enough guidance we have included TV astronomer Robin Scagell's Stargazing with a Telescope FREE. This 192-page fully illustrated book is a great read and will guide the new telescope user in the methods of telescopic observation. It also introduces many of the fantastic targets that can be seen from UK back gardens. We've also included (see FREE offer above) a wall map, a year-round star finder guide. As if this was not enough, also included is a CD-ROM (item 5) containing a great software astronomy and planetarium program called Sky-Charts that you can run on your home PC and it will let you explore the virtual the sky in fantastic detail and print guide charts before going out to explore the real sky!

To help find your way among the stars and constellations there's a fantastic electronic red dot LED finder! Red dot finder (item 4 in photo) - it's a clever little gadget that you switch on and it appears to project a red dot on the sky - simply place the red dot on the target you wish to look at! To help get your directions right there's even a magnetic compass included(see item 6 in photo - you only really need to know where North is!)

To make the best use of the red dot finder the kit also includes a fantastic 290mm (11.5") FREE Philip's Planisphere (to identify the stars and constellations from your back-garden any hour of the night. There's also a basic mini version included with the scope - see photo item 8). The Planisphere is made of flexible plastic to make it water-proof and hard wearing. It's probably the most popular sky and star guide in the world and most astronomers discover it after they get a telescope - we are making sure you get one of these excellent companions with your new scope. (the Planisphere normally sells for £7.99!)

Also includes a useful 3x Barlow lens (item 2 in photo) to allow you to triple the magnification of any eyepiece used. Simply pop the eyepiece into the Barlow lens and put the combined unit into the scope as you would the eyepiece and the Barlow will increase the magnification of that eyepiece by a factor of three - it's like getting six eyepieces with the scope instead of three!

This outfit is a great astronomy starter kit - in fact, all you will need to supply is a clear night!

Telescope specifications

Primary Mirror: Glass, aluminised with silicone overcoat 114mm

Focal length: 900mm

Aperture: 114mm (f7.8)

Magnification with supplied eyepieces:

36x,100x,108x,225x,300x and 675x.

This is achieved with the following combinations:

25mm = 36x plus Barlow = 108x, 9mm = 100x plus Barlow = 300x, 4mm = 225x plus Barlow = 675x,

Mounting: German equatorial with dual-axis manual slow motions

So what's so great about the Bresser 114 telescope kit?

Well, overlooking the fact that it has everything you need to get going (apart from a clear night that is!) The Bresser 114 is a "classic" long focus Newtonian telescope (Named after Sir Issac Newton it's inventor in the 17th century). It has a large-sized aperture, 114mm (four and a half inches in old money!) to achieve high resolution and very bright images, and has a useful long focal length to achieve high power magnifications without making the telescope too difficult to use.

At two or three times the price, the Bresser 114 is a well-made scope - at our price it's extraordinary value for money. The telescope is well equipped with an ultra modern red-dot finder scope (to make pointing and target finding easy) and the simple two-screw collimation system shows a nice attention to detail and user convenience.

Over and above the top specification the thing that impresses us most is the nice 'touches' that although not that important in themselves, display the attitude of the manufacturer. The dovetail bar that holds the telescope in place is usually moulded plastic - works ok, is a bit springy as you tighten the lock screw and it usually looks a bit tatty after a year or so of use. The Bresser 114, in contrast, has a cast and machined aluminium metal dovetail bar - and it's a real surprise to find it on a scope of this low-price. The manufacturer really has spent time and money making sure this serious scope is top of it's class.

Fully upgradable! The EQ-Sky equatorial mount can be upgraded with an RA motor to track the stars - far too many lower-cost scopes offer no kind of upgrade path and if you really get bitten by the hobby (and you may well with this great scope) with inferior instruments you have nowhere to go but to buy a new scope. In fact, Scopes'n'Skies main forte is supplying astronomy telescope accessories and the Bresser 114 can be upgraded and added to in many different ways. For example, it has a standard 1.25" eyepiece holder (regarded as the hallmark of a serious telescope, by the way) allowing a wide range of additional accessories to be attached. These accessories include camera adaptors (to try your hand at astro-photography), Barlow and amplification lenses (like the one included, to increase the magnification without using short, difficult to use, eyepieces), as well as wide-angle and higher-powered specialist eyepieces and other accessories to make the telescope easier to use on terrestrial targets. Even a safe Solar observation filter is also available for the 114.

What can you see with the Bresser 114 telescope?

One of the great advantages of the 114 is it's sheer light-gathering power - it will deliver stunning views of even very remote galaxies and nebulea.

At low to medium power the ancient landscape of the Moon becomes a fabulously intricate panorama of craters, rays and rills. At higher powers individual crater systems can be explored in fantastic detail. The planet Mars will show many details on its surface and the polar cap can be seen during ideal observing conditions. At good observing times, when observed at just 50x or higher magnification, the planet Jupiter will appear as a banded disc, and at just 60x magnification, larger in size than you normally see the full Moon with the unaided eye! The cloud belts of Jupiter will show ever changing detail that will show drift across the planet's face in just a few minutes. The four main moons of Jupiter will be seen orbiting the giant planet, sometimes casting shadows onto Jupiter's dense cloudy atmosphere. The planet Saturn will show its magnificent ring system and its bright famous moon Titan. These are just a few of the things that can be seen in our own solar system with the 114 telescope. Outside of the solar system hundreds of gas nebulea and galaxies come within the reach of this powerful instrument.