Top positive review
Great looking scope with very nice views so far!
By william padgett on Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2025
So far so good. The one I bought was sold as "used- very good" and was heavily discounted. The version I received, to my relief, had the collimation screws as advertised on Amazon for the new model. A speck of debris inside the tube immediately caught my eye. Shining a light into the tube (never do that to yourself) revealed a miniscule amount of debris and a slight smudge on the corrector plate; nothing I was concerned would significantly affect performance. This is a nice looking scope. I like the finish. This scope is light but feels substantial for its size. The caution with this scope is that, despite its compact size, it is easy to under mount due to its long focal length. It is designed to be used at medium to high powers and so will amplify any shakiness to the point of nuisance. Desiring this scope to function as a grab-and-go instrument, I was concerned when my lighter eq mount couldn't keep this scope steady when being brought to focus or repositioned with slow motion controls, taking several seconds to stop wobbling. Despite recommendations against doing so, I mounted this on my fluid panhead photo tripod and to my surprise this worked very well. I now experience no wobble at the eyepiece while focusing or viewing. This pairing was my original hope as this setup is extremely portable and versatile, allowing for simple height adjustments, standing or seated. Of course it will be rainy and cloudy for days on end because I have a new scope. However, I have had a couple of less than ideal moments that nevertheless allowed some testing of the optics. A mak cass is said to specialize at sharp, contrasty lunar and planetary observing as well as double star splitting. It gave up an effortlessly sharp saturn in the early a.m. Just tonight I observed the moon. At 140-160x the view was razor sharp and contrasty. I noticed a couple of rimae inside a crater that I now wish I had taken the time to find on a lunar map. I took the power to 195x using a 20mm redline with a celestron 3x barlow. Still effortlessly sharp. After that, I split the double-double in Lyra. No problem. This thing does what it is meant to, beautifully. So, 5 stars. Under better seeing conditions I'm looking forward to seeing what else it can do. I was able to nab the ring nebula no problem before haze and clouds drifted in. I did swap the diagonal out for a William Optics dialectric I already owned. Svbony sells a nice, affordable dialectric. The included diagonal might be fine. The included red dot finder works great. I will probably go back and forth between the red dot and an Orion 9x50 finderscope that I'm happy to be able to use with this scope. The only issue I see limiting this scope's grab-and-go potential is its cooldown time, reportedly 30 minutes or more. Keeping that in mind and planning accordingly sort of flies in the face of the concept of grab-and-go, but it is what it is. Otherwise, it can still be used at lower powers til the unit reaches ambient temperature. Um, I made a temporary dew shield with construction paper. I like the soft carrying case that came with the scope. I guess that's about all I can say for now. Easy 5 stars for performance vs price. Hmm...I just realized this thing can easily handle my binoviewers, which makes this my only small scope that can. It's also my only scope that doesn't require a barlow to bring my binos to focus. Can I give this scope 6 stars?
Top critical review
1 people found this helpful
Bigger planets
By Charlie on Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2025
I got this scope because I was not happy with the planet sizes my short tube refractors were producing. Venus and Saturn are gone but Jupiter is a nice size in this scope and even people who have never looked through a telescope before have discovered the equatorial belts on their own. I have never used a moving mirror focuser I liked and initially had trouble with focus shift and image shift on this scope. I bought a Baader prism diagonal with a built in helical focuser to replace the stock dielectric diagonal on the theory that I would use the moving mirror focusers to get in the ballpark and then switch to the helical focuser to find tune focus. About the time the expensive diagonal, especially since the scope came with a diagonal, arrived I read that focus shift and image shift are features built into all moving mirror focusers. They had four suggestions to work around the issue: 1) replace the focuser with a higher quality internal focuser - easy on a SCT, all of which have standardized backs, but not on a Mak where every manufacturer has their own standard so there are no after market focusers being made 2) add an external focuser on the back end so you don't need to use the moving mirror focuser - what I had already done with the Baader diagonal 3) rack focus all the way in and out 12 times to distribute the glob of grease that the manufacturer put wherever the focusing screw passes through the nut over the entire length of the focuser screw 4) move the mirror back beyond focus and slowly move it forward until focus is achieved, always stopping mirror movement while it is moving forward It wasn't going to cost me anything so I spent 45 minutes laying in bed with the scope twisting the focus knob all the way in one direction and then all the way in the other direction. It was a lot of twisting and probably more than 12 repetitions as I lost count a couple of times amid the excitement. I looked in the front end and could not tell which direction the mirror way moving when I twisted the knob clockwise or anticlockwise. 2 and 3 appear to both be working for me. I can find tune focus with the helical focuser but often achieve focus with the moving mirror focuser and there isn't noticeable focus shift anymore. I still get some image shift so if I don't get focus spot on initially I recenter the object and continue focusing with the helical focuser. The scope and accessories fit in my backpack and are a lot lighter and more convenient to transport than my short tube 102ED refractor. I tried using a Barlow with the scope but the field of view is so narrow that by the time I get the eyepiece out and the Barlowed lens in the target is long gone. I did once get a good big Barlowed view if crescent Venus by luck. To use a Barlow you need the scope on a clock drive. The red dot finder doesn't look very impressive but it feels very solid. My body doesn't bend in enough directions to get behind a red dot finder mounted at the back end of the scope so I am using my old Orion RACI finder scope. I am a left eye user so can have it aligned with its chimney parallel to my eyepiece. But right eye users bump into it when trying to get to the eyepiece. And the ocular of the finder is often too high up for me to see through it. I have to angle it off to the side but then the crosshairs are at an angle that does not relate to the slow motion controls of my Bogen 410 mount. ⭐⭐⭐ Is my base rating for a product that is fully functional and fulfills its promises
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