I have had my Founder FOT86 telescope for a year now, and I decided that somebody ought to sing it praises, because anyone wanting a top quality Apo around this size should give it some serious thought.

I was initially put off buying it because the chunky rings and bright greem anodising made it look rather cheap and child-like on the photos. However, when I got it out of the box I realised how wrong I was. The very high build quality and cosmetic detailing was an eye-opener. It looks, feels, and acts like a top quality item.

I appreciate some small things that you may not think of, such as the handle which has enough room under it to allow large hands to grip it comfortably. The aluminium case that it comes with is very nice and is longer than necessary. Why is that good? Well it allows me to put the scope back in the box without removing the included flattener. In fact, I believe that removing one piece of foam packing I could put it back with a camera in place too. A little work with a scalpel, on the end foam, would be needed but I think it would be possible for a normally sized dedicated astro camera. The case, as it comes, has holes in the foam for some accessories; but you won't need the hole for the flattener if it is attached to the scope. They've thought of everything.

The focuser is fabulous - very smooth with no backlash and a weighty engineered feel to it. The dewshield moves smoothly and stays in place. It is simply well designed and very well put together.

What about optical quality? Well, it's more of the same and yes, of course it gives very sharp images. I have nothing negative to say about it and it seems without any issues that I am aware of. Chromatic aberration is non existent as far as I can see, and star shapes are perfectly round from corner to corner using the supplied flattener. Sorry, I can't think of anything else to say about optical quality. It just is superb. I first inserted the flattener and then a ZWO camera with the micro-four thirds sensor and took some trial shots expecting to see perhaps some tilt issues due to not screwing the flattener drectly onto the scope but no, it was just great. So that is the way it has stayed apart from a trial when I bought the Stellalyra 0.8 reducer/flattener which gave almost identically good results. Maybe, just maybe, the reducer is not quite up to the super high standard set by the 1.0x flattener, but without spending lots of time I cannot say what effect the atmospheric conditions had. I have only used the telescope at its native focal length since then, and the results are always special.

One other thing about the optics is that the included quality chart (inspection report) is for the individual scope and mine was subtly different to the one on FLOs web page. It is not a generic piece of advertising.

In use, it has been a joy. It holds focus with no trouble at all and carrying it in and out on consecutive nights usually results in no need to refocus according my Bahtinov mask. I have not used an electronic focusser. I only use OSC cameras so why bother when it never needs refocussing during the night? The long dew shield is also pretty good at resisting the objective lens frosting up. I have a dew heater but it doesn't get used all that much. Maybe that is because I live in Suffolk, UK, which is generally a pretty dry county.

Are there any negatives? Oh come on, there must be something. Um, well it is fairly long and fairly heavy I suppose, but if Founder believe that makes it a better telescope then that is fine by me.

Clear skies everyone, Neal