I'm not an astronomer. I just love looking at the moon through my binoculars. I wanted to get a bit closer to it. Well.... this little gem certainly does that ! The two lenses provided will get you a decent ring side seat to that show and more !!! Add a Barlow x2 and you'll be in an Apollo Moonshot about to enter orbit. The bonus for me is that I now get a nice peak at Jupiter and can see it's Newtonian moons. Be realistic about small scopes - Jupiter is the size of a pea through this thing and is rather bright but you can clearly see its bands and - more to the point - you can see that it's a massive object just hanging in space and that impression is mind blowing.

What to expect ? A lot depends on 'seeing' quality at the time and how you train your eyes. I've ditched my filters and have taught my eyes how to relax and to see the features (planets are very bright.) I have yet to look at Saturn but at this rate expect to be able to see its rings clearly.

The joy of this scope is that it is grab-and-go and rather like a Swiss Army knife the one you carry in your pocket is the one that you will use the most. This is a serious scope with an all important parabolic main mirror. Make sure that you get a collimation laser with it too. My only doubt about this scope is that I might go for a 150p version sooner rather than later as I enjoy the concept of this model so much. It's certainly got me obsessed with searching for planets.

Why get this and not the 150p ? Price and a slight size differential (if storage is a problem.) Bear in mind that for the extra £80 the 150p offers 30% more light collection. Light = Data in visual astronomy.

Based on reviews had this bought as a Christmas present. Very good, prompt delivery meant that could take advantage of the cold, clear nights that we have had recently - strictly a bit before Santa officially arrived. Very easy to set up and check alignment. Easy to guide to the right position. The knob on the elevation control does take some effort to turn so that the telescope is maintained on an object but the azimuth mount is very easy.
Superb views on its very night out of the orion nebula, Pleiades (so beautiful) and Jupiter (with 4 moons easy to see). I'm not sure if it is my eyes or the lenses but colour differentiation of stars was not obvious - Mars and Betelgeuse appeared to me to be the same colour as Bellatrix for example.
All in all a great fun telescope and fits nicely in a cupboard when the skies are cloudy.

What an incredible bit of kit. This is my first telescope and from my garden on the first night of use I managed to view a full moon, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and Mars. Difficult to express how incredible this felt, seeing the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter from your garden with a sub £200 telescope. FLO excellent, fast shipping and item was packaged very safely.

Well I was very lucky! When the parcel came I had three straight nights of nil cloud, apparently a minor miracle ! So I very quickly unboxed and attached the finder scope. Adjusted it to match the telescope. And I was ready to go, so incredibly easy. The views of the moon were simply stunning with the x25 eyepiece. Had a great night just picking targets and looking at them. Sadly Saturn and Jupiter were too low from where I was. On the other nights my youngest son and grandson were also suitability impressed with the views of the moon. It's a great little scope that's easily moved. And my wife is pleased as it takes up very little room. Delivery was super quick thanks to FLO! Will definitely be buying future products for this scope from FLO, and ultimately an 8" dobsonian (don't tell my wife lol). Also easy to collimate with a collimation cap as has a doughnut on the primary mirror.

I spent ages reading reviews before I decided on this little scope (as a first purchase). I do not have the room to have a telescope set up ready to go so it has to be 'grab and go'. It takes up no room in the house and is just easy to use. I have done a coupe of mods - light shroud, Azi indicator and put a prism on the red dot; but that is just tinkering. After I bought it I then found the largest forum thread in the history of the universe all about the joys of this scope so if in doubt have a search for that on Cloudy Nights ((AWB/Onesky).

Bought this scope as a bitthday present for my boyfriend and I am sure so far this was the best present I have ever gave him. He is just a begginer and this scope ir very easy to set up and use. Also it looks very modern and nice. I would recommend to others!

This is a really nicely designed product and I have enjoyed it very much since I got it in 2014 from FLO. Let me first mention the positives. The primary mirror is good: a nice size and high quality. I did an artificial star test and the results looked very good. I also looked at it with a Ronchi eyepiece and the pattern looked perfect.

The flextube structure is brilliant: is allows for compact storage, good protection and, perhaps not so obvious, good ventilation. Another secret is that you can actually increase the back focus by shortening the tube by not fully extending the tube. Because the position can be locked with screws, the shortened tube is stable. Also great is that, unlike similar models of this size Newtonian, it comes with an attached Vixen dovetail. I actually have always used it on my small Vixen mount, not on the Dobsonian mount that is included.

I can complain a bit about the focuser. I needed to put some Teflon tape on the threads since there was too much slop in the movement. The tape made it stiffer and you can keep putting on more layers of tape to make it however stiff you like (and remove it easily too). Teflon is very low friction so it ends up moving surprisingly smoothly. The only complaint is that the whole eyepiece rotates, which is an issue if you attach a camera to it (I have attached a small ZWO camera to take some images -- the guide camera ones are perfect for this telescope). An improvement on the focuser is to attach a helical focuser. Since I had one anyway, I have used it this way when attaching a camera (although I suspect the focuser costs as much as the telescope so it kind of goes against the the theory of buying this telescope). The included focuser plus Teflon tape works well enough.

Now the only major complaint I have: the secondary mirror. First of all, the way it attaches to the tube is a bit finicky and it came very loose so that the secondary mirror rotated way too easily. This needed to be tightened with a small pair of pliers (there is a locking nut next to where the metal rod attaches to the inside of the tube). In a quality control issue, my secondary came installed rotated by 180 degrees from the correct orientation. On first thought you would think the mirror is symmetrical but in fact it is not. So the way it came, it appeared not circular as viewed from the primary mirror but rather as an oval. This is a subtle error and might not be realised at first so it is worth checking. The mirror is attached with double sided tape which required careful pulling off (using cotton gloves to avoid messing with the mirror coating). I then reattached the secondary using a useful product from 3M called "Damage-Free Picture Hanging Strips". This is similar to Velcro but stronger and more secure. That way I could play with the position of the secondary and also easily swap it for another one. The reason I mention swapping is because I realised that the secondary mirror that came with the telescope was quite a bit oversized. The specs on the SkyWatcher website say that the secondary is 34.5mm. In fact, the one I got was 40mm (minor axis diameter). This represents a 31% central obstruction, which is quite high, even for a fast Newtonian (the secondary mirror gets smaller as the F number increases). In fact, the maximum size of the secondary mirror holder is 35mm in diameter and a quick calculation shows that for most objects (such a looking at the moon), a 30mm mirror is large enough. So I ordered a new 35mm diagonal mirror from Orion Optics UK and with the "Picture Hanging Strips" it was then very easy to swap the secondary mirror.

All in all, a lovely telescope that I have used for many applications. So light and simple and I do not worry about children damaging it. I actually bought this with the intention of using it for a special purpose: a solar Newtonian telescope. This involved etching the mirror coating off the primary. See "Dave Groski's White Light Newtonian Page" for details about this approach. The results were brilliant and this telescope was perfect for that application. I actually have one secondary with no mirror coating and one that still has it on so that I can have more or less attenuation, depending on what I want to do (i.e. visual or imaging).

When I bought this, I thought it was just a cheap average telescope considering the price. But let me tell you, DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE PRICE
This Scope is very capable of both DSO and planetary observations. Although, if you want to take this scope to its fullest potential, I recommend buying another set of Plossl eyepieces and a 2x Barlow lens.

The telescope itself was awesome, but I made a mistake.
When I got it it was cloudy for the whole week, so I thought I could collimate it. When I nudged the mirror, a few hours of my life were gone. I give you this advice: 'Do not try to collimate it before you check if the mirrors are alligned.'
Everything else was great.

The scope is great for any beginner, DSOs are easily resolved, and details in planets and the moon are magnificent! Overall the experineces i've had with the scope is great. However there are some useful modifications that you *need* to get the full experience:
A light shroud- for better contrast
Making the helical focuser stiffer (using silicon tape)- Allows for a more accurate focus, heavy eyepieces don't flex down the focuser, collimation stays very constant no matter where you point.

These fixes are easy though, do do not be discouraged!