First of all, I would like to thank FLO for their excellent delivery and help with my previous purchase.
The 130pds arrived just as quickly and without the clouds For me, this has been quite a journey to resurrect an old hobby which will keep me occupied in my forthcoming retirement. Not long ago, I purchased a 2nd hand Celestron Astromaster 70EQ (memories of my dear old Prinz 330 from Dixons). However, it would shake like hell even with the lightest touch, so I bought the Skywatcher AZ5 mount and heavy duty stainless tripod to try and make the Celestron Astromaster work for me. This should have been as solid as it gets, but my Celestron Astromaster's focus tube (which is plastic!) was very sloppy - even after putting shim on the inside to take up the play. Absolutely no good. I decided to cut my losses and purchase this Sky-Watcher Explorer 130P-DS OTA which would fit nicely on my AZ5 mount and stainless heavy duty tripod. I resisted the temptation to go for the bigger 150P-DS after reading various forums about weight issues, and I'm now glad I went for the 130P-DS. It's quite a chunky piece of kit and I wouldn't want it to be much more heavy when fixing it into the dovetail of the AZ5. I bought the StellaLyra Premium Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece at the same time which came in useful, because the first thing I noticed was that one of the "Spider vanes" that holds the secondary mirror in place was slightly twisted. Having carefully straightened the vane, I did a quick Collimation of the secondary mirror and the primary mirror was already spot on. The supplied assembly instructions for the 130P-DS are only a general guide and not specific to this telescope - Just as well I had been reading about the 130P-DS package contents on the internet because I almost threw away the "rubber band" which was wrapped around the leg of the finder scope, before finding out that the "rubber band" is a vital component that fits in the groove around the finders scope tube to keep it steady. Once set, the finder scope is better than any "Red dot Finder".
So out I went to try out my treasured new telescope and do some observing. Now, I know most people like the use the 130P-DS for imaging, but for me, that's another future venture and for now, I'm just doing visual and I must say, it's nice to be able to look through the eyepiece in a more relaxed posture rather than having to bend down like I did with the Celestron refractor when looking at objects high in the sky. I haven't tried the supplied 2" 28mm eyepiece yet (which requires the use of the supplied 2" dia extension tube for visual), but I've been browsing the heavens using a 24mm 1.25" Stellalyra UltraFlat eyepiece, and I can say It's awesome! I then upped the magnification a bit using a BST StarGuider 60º 8mm ED Eyepiece and took a look at Saturn. to see nice bright rings. Adding a 2x Barlow brought Saturn closer but at a cost, I think when one gets up to higher magnifications, the AZ5 mount starts to show its limitations with image tremble for several seconds when using the slow motion AZ controls which you have to do a lot to keep the object in view. Where this telescope does excel though is using the lower power magnification looking at star clusters. One day, I hope to get the motorised HEQ5 mount, but for the moment, I'm happy with this "Grab and go" setup..... The journey continues

Only real issue is focuser. its not bad, its also not great

Hi, the ota looks like a nice scope. Unfortunately unable to give a review as the weather has been overcast for weeks. It does not look good for the next while.Sorry about that, Thom Jonsen.

I have been using this scope mainly for imaging during the past 3 or 4 weeks. I must say first that when it arrived it was seriously not collimated. Fortunately I bought the Stella Lira cheshire and that helped me collimate the scope in a reasonable amount of time. So I made some deep sky pictures with some succes (without the use of a coma corrector) with a small camera sensor (IMX585), and also performed some solar imaging as well. No complains about this, to be honest. I decided then to purchase the ZWO EAF in order to "formally" include this scope for my imaging sessions (especially for citizen science, taking spectra of variable stars). To my surprise I could not remove the focuser knob from the shaft, because it seems that it was glued to it (it did not come with a grip screw). To be honest, I did not want to use pressure clamps to try to loosen the knob, because I did not want to cause any damage to the shaft and to the knob. So, I am not able to take this knob out and thus install my recently received EAF. Tried to find a supplier for the shaft (4 mm diameter x 80 mm long), but I could not find a single one (not even in hobby on-line stores). This is very unfortunate. I had a Sky-Watcher Mak-Cas scope, and it turned out to be very good (but too slow for my purposes). I was aware that for the price I was not going to obtain a top notch scope, but this lack of any quality control from Sky-Watcher is somehow worrying. The scope is good but for seasoned amateur astronomers, not for beginners. If you are looking for a good newtonian, and you are a beginner, please check out other options, although they might cost a little bit more (but will guarantee your enjoyment).

Had the scope for just over 6 months. I bought it in case I decided to do imaging. That being said I've almost exclusively used it for visual.
It is fantastic for visual. Bright views of DSO and very sharp views of the planets when collimated.
I've done a few images with it, using an IMAX 533 sensor and with a smaller sensor it produces fairly minimal coma.

I bought this to compliment an 8" Stella Lyra Dobsonian. I do some visual from the garden but due to a combination of light pollution and trees I am limited in my view. so also have a travel rig. or to set a rig taking pics whilst using the dob.

I have a Skywater 200PDS/EQ5 that I had bought second hand, its light gathering was great (and was the reason I bought the dob). I had bought this rig just it for the mount and acessories (guide scope./coma correcter) I had planned to sell the tube and get something smaller for use on the EQ5 at home as well as on an AZT GTI when travelling to sites on foot

The 130PDS is pretty much the same as the 200PDS just smaller. and a lot lighter! It has a good dual speed focuser that doesn't slip even with a camera attached. The included eye piece is a 28mm plossl and is of good quality (normally bundled in eye pieces aren't great). The finder scope is good,so I felt no need to add a telrad and with the 1.25" adaptor and the extension tube I have been able to use my exsiting eye pieces and DSLR.

I unpacked the tube, set it up in 5 mins and had it mounted on the AZ GTI ready for use. I was lucky to get a clear night the day it arrived, the moon and Jupiter looked great through it. I had no issues using it on an AZ GTI the mount was nice and stable. I have yet to test it on the EQ5 but will do.

Have a look on cloudynights.com and there are a lot of threads on astrohotography with this OTA . Glen (Astro Bloke on youtube) also uses the 130PDS for a lot of his astrophotography. Its a really good scope for the money.

The telescope arrived packaged well enough to survive being used as a football by delivery companies. FLO forgot to include the clouds in the box, so I was able to set it up on the very night it arrived, and after spending a bit of time working out how the camera adapter fits together with the coma corrector (bought separately) I was able to snap a few globular clusters. The focal length is 650mm, only 50mm longer than the camera zoom lens I was using before, but the result was much sharper and brighter. I haven't gone through the full collimation process yet, so it might even get a little better still. Very pleased.

First I want to start by congratulating FLO for their great service, this applies to the ease of purchasing on the online store page which was very easy and accurate because it said that the product was available and it was, delivery by DHL from the united kingdom it was fast and the merchandise arrived 3 days before the date stipulated by DHL, the telescope arrived well packaged with good protection on the outside of the box, which makes me feel good because they made an effort to make a good package for such a long trip to United States, the telescope arrived in excellent condition, it was out of collimation which is normal due to the long trip, but that was fixed immediately, I am very happy with the quality of the optics and the double speed focuser which it allows me to make optical fine tuning adjustments, it was a good purchase with the number of adapters and it also included the finder scope and the tube rings and the dove tail, for the price I think I made a good purchase, but the FLO service was very satisfactory. thanks FlO

Have had this tube a few weeks now and managed to make a start with my observing. On the whole it seems a strong well made telescope. The images with the supplied eyepiece seem very clear. It is a elevation to see the moon using this telescope, and myriad of stars that appear out of the night sky is quite astonishing.
The service from FLO was very good. There was a small damaged component but this was dealt with promptly.
I purchased a Cheshire Collimator and this works well.

I've started my astrophotography journey with this and I am enjoying every minute of it. It is a highly capable scope.