This is our first telescope and we picked this based on price, availability and features. We are complete novices however setting up took about an hour and then we were good to go. We havent had many clear nights to road test everything this telescope can do. Delivery was very quick and easy.

as it was o present for someone else whose birthday was yesterday I can only say that it arrived very promptly and looks amazing
but i cannot say more at the moment

I bought this, back in May, after some binocular astronomy. I read the reviews and decided this was the place to start, well priced, good reviews.
Don’t be put off by the EQ mount, there is plenty of information and advice online to help set this up.
The views - first time out and great views of the Moons surface, but it was Jupiter and moons and Saturn and rings that really was the “Wow” moment.
For the money, this will hit the mark for a starter ‘scope. Easy to assemble, not too big to store, plenty of room to grow.
Fantastic service from FLO.

This is a new adventure for me. I bought the telescope based on website browsing and recommendation. It was straight forward to set up and balance, and is very stable when viewing, and the red dot finder once aligned [ which is easy ] is brilliant to help sight onto an object. Aligning about both normal axes is easy but have not tried polar alignment yet as I am still finding my way. Be aware that once erected it weighs around 13 kg. and is a handful to move around. Prompt service from FLO and am very pleased so far.

We bought the Skywatcher 130M EQ2 almost exactly one year ago. It was our first venture into astronomy & I didn't want to spend too much. Bought as a birthday present for my wife & starting from scratch, I've found it s fairly steep but nonetheless rewarding learning curve. The Optical quality is impressive & over the last year I've not needed to alter the collimation. With the eyepieces supplied, we've managed to get some spectacular views of the lunar surface, the pleiades and the double cluster, plus we've seen Mars, Saturn, Jupiter & the Andromeda galaxy.

You do get what you pay for however... We soon replaced the red dot finder with a 9x50 erecting Finderscope & Telrad, which made star hopping easier and quickly learnt that the RA/Dec dials were largely decorative. Getting good polar alignment was also frustrating at first, until I realised that the Latitude scale was out by about 4 degrees... Longitude adjustment is also a bit hit & miss with it being difficult to tighten the bolt sufficiently so the head doesn't move whilst observing. (I also learnt the hard way that the slow-motion DEC control has finite travel!)

With a Finderscope & Telrad added, it was still possible to balance the scope without any problem, although it did mean that the counter-weight had to be near the end of the bar. Unlike higher-end scopes, the weight's tightening-bolt doesn't have a plastic tip, so tends to scratch the bar, and there is a little slack between the bar & mount. The motorized clock drive, does the job too, though it's design is a little clunky & it's easy to knock the scope off target when engaging it. Tracking is sufficient for visual observing, but Polar alignment is quite rough and the EQ-2 isn't sufficient for any astrophotography. That said, we did get some nice eyepiece projection images of the moon and the Orion nebula (albeit with star trailing), with an ordinary digital compact camera.

Fixing the scope to the mount, means fully opening the two tube rings which are fixed to the head, so putting a couple of bits of PVC electrical tape on the Optical Tube was useful to quickly get the tube positioned. It's also easy to slacken the rings to rotate the tube so that the eyepiece is in a more comfortable position - usually without upsetting the balance.

I don't mean to sound negative - for the money - this is an incredible scope and it was well worth it, but you do get what you pay for. It's also worth mentioning that in the dozen or so orders we've placed with FLO over the last year, the customer service has been excellent on all occasions...

A wonderful telescope for my space-obssessed teenage daughter. Tonight she was thrilled to have a sharp close up view of the moon's craters. Flo were fantastic at giving advice on choosing the model, setting up and didn't quibble about promptly replacing a damaged part. Highly recommend.

This is a very good telescope with a motor so it tracks the stars and planets. Once polar aligned, it tracks very good allowing the object to stay in the eyepiece or webcam-for planet, moon and solar imaging- for a good amount of time. This telescope allows you to see many objects however the focuser could be improved but is good enough for a first time telescope. I would recommend this to anyone just starting astronomy as it is a good price for what you get