Have just received my telescope, a sky-watcher explorer 200p-ds ota, and straight away i thought of mini me from the movie, the spy who sha**ed me , you know the seen when Dr Evil said" stop humping the laser" that's how i felt about my new telescope, the thing is i am in a wheel chair because i am disabled, saying that if i could have i would have done my new toy.
Fantastic piece of well made equipment, and love it. Thank you Flo and Santa.

I was after a medium reflector telescope for hunting out the small galaxies and star systems. This size reflector is a good all-rounder for my needs - not heavy, or too large to manage. I found the optics great and very easy to colliminate, using "Bobs Knobs" The light gathering is quite remarkable for a mirror of this size, with bright images. Unfortunately the weather is not playing ball at the moment, so a real test will have to wait. Great service from FLO as usual, fast delivery.

This is my 3rd reflector and was the successor to my 150/600 Altair. I did some research on YouTube and most vlogs will tell you that the first job is to replace the compression ring on the focuser for one with the brass ring (to stop the screws marking your camera). It’s a cheap upgrade and adds piece of mind. Secondly, you need to seal the light leaks around the focuser body with electrical tape (or similar) and flock the interior of the tube, because if you don’t it’s like Blackpool Illuminations on your images. Both of these again are really cheap upgrades.

Where the cost starts, and this is purely personal preference, is the spider. The majority of scopes from all manufacturers at this price point use thin, flexible spiders, which in turn are susceptible to flex, which affects collimation. I’d budgeted for the Backyard Universe cast spider and it completely transforms the diffraction spikes, they are razor sharp! When you twin this with the primary mirror mask (also from BU) my images were in another class.

The 200pds is a recommended scope due to its ability to be upgraded. It’s just a shame that the basic components like the spider and light leaks reduce its effectiveness. Mine was on offer from FLO as a customer return, so I didn’t pay full price. FLO we’re excellent as ever. I don’t regret the purchase in the slightest, but if you are thinking of buying one, do so with the knowledge that you’ll be wanting to tinker with it to suit your taste.

FLO were excellent. Delivery within 2 days.
I already own the excellent 130 pds (which is amazing value) and wanted to step up.

The scope arrived very poorly collimated and this took some time to rectify with my laser, without one I think it would have been impossible. Perfect now though. However, I've only had one clear night since it arrived and I managed a few decent pictures. They exceeded those I've taken of the moon with a much more expensive scope with the same aperture (8" meade lx10 SCT). This is probably due to the excellent dual speed focuser on the 200 pds. Based upon the good deep sky images I get with the 130 pds, I expect much better with the 200. I wanted an all round scope for solar system imaging (does well with Barlow, despite focal length of only 1000 mm) and deep sky. This is the perfect solution.

Fast shipping to the United States excellent customer care. Telescope performs well and is actually quite beautiful I would recommend FLO and would buy from them again

This is an absolutely excellent telescope and at such a reasonably price . It is so lightweight and perfectly mounted on my NEQ6 Pro mount . Collimation was reasonably easy with the Rigel Aline Collimation cap . The optics are fast at f/4.5 with Skywatcher x0.9 Coma Corrector . My camera (850D) connected perfectly to the coma corrector .
On my first night , I was imaging some of the Ursa Major Galaxies with my modded 850D DSLR ( Messier 51/109/81-82) . The results were quite impressive even with relatively few exposures to stack ...good detail and colour . I am looking forward to re-imaging again with more exposures . This is a great telescope for Deep Sky imaging , and is very wide field . I am really looking forward too imaging nebulae (like Messier 8) . Planetary nebula ( like Messier27) , globular and open clusters . I hope to use the telescope to image a wide range of galaxies ... including more challenging ones also . I would give this telescope 6 stars.!

Great combination but it's worth noting that if you use the 200 OTA with the HEQ5, the counterweights are only just enough for the 200 and the included eyepiece.
If you want to put some heavier lenses or a camera onto the telescope, the standard counterweights are not quite enough for good Right Ascension balance. You need either extra weights or a weights extension bar to make sure that the scope balances. There are discussions around moments and vibrations for extra weights vs. extension bars, so look those arguments up if you're having to make a choice.

I wanted to upgrade from a 130mm (650 mm focal lenght) newtonian, to something that I could still use to capture some nebula and would also really get some more detail on targets like M33 Triangulum; I haven't been disappointed! One note to to people is really to consider the camera sensor you are planning to use too; as it makes a huge difference of your field of view! I did collimate this on arrival and it was slightly out - nothing major though and not surprising given it has been shipped from the UK to Europe.

The surprise for me was really that the increased aperture was not the main thing I liked, the general build was so much more sturdy that my previous scope. The focuser is real a game changer, and also the rings, dovetail and guide scope being included were all very nice touches. I am using this with the NEQ6 pro and I dont have any issues with the weight. I do see these sold with the HEQ5 Pro and wonder if this OTA with all the other imaging accessories may start to push the limits of the mount a little (just something to do a little research on if you are looking to purchase).

Anyway, I literally have no regrets with this OTA, it is fantastic, and allows me to get good signal in a much shorter time which is important as I have a fairly limited sky view.

Service was spot on from flow - there was a fairly long lead time for this but all well communicated and clear - arrived exactly when they said it would.

I had been observing using a Skywatcher 120mm Refractor. It's a great scope. I found myself becoming more interested in imaging than viewing. I got some okay results from the 120 (CA was obviously a thing, as was the tight FOV).

I took a break and decided to use lockdown as a good reason to restart the hobby. I'd been considering the 200P-DS for a while. (several years!) It offered me a nice fast scope at an affordable price. (I had considered a an APO refractor, but the cost of those soon mounts up). It was also very much weighted toward astrophotography.

In terms of imaging it's very much tailored to my level of skill - I've learned the basics and been fighting with a refractor. I found that it's much more forgiving than my refractor and it's not too fast to present another learning curve. So I reckon it's a good intermediate to advanced level telescope. I'll probably hit my limit for I exceed the scopes!

So far the scope has exceeded my expectations. Although designed more for imaging I have had some pretty good visual experiences so far. It's early days and a 90% moon has been making life interesting. Imaging - so far M101 and M13 have been targets and I've been very impressed with the results - focusing is especially good with the dual speed controls. So far coma has not been much of an issue, but my sessions have been limited by light and time.

Fit finish and build quality is great. Collimation was more or less spot on out of the box. Bundled accessories are all well made and machined.

The scope is heavy and a little bulky - but still very manageable. It really is in the sweet spot where size and aperture are just right.

Great scope - I love it!

Firstly, thank you to FLO for their amazing service. Order received at 9am Monday. Telescope arrived 11:40am Tuesday. The 200 PDS is an excellent instrument and exceeds my previous Skywatcher 200p that I bought in 2002. The new model is an absolute breeze to collomate, taking only 2-3 minutes to do both the primary and secondary mirrors (previous model had tiny, equal size possidrive screws for the primary. Nightmare) and the image quality is first class. Easily observed the Ring Nebula in Lyra, even under a bright 11 day moon. Resolution of the "double-double" in Lyra was easily achieved. Detail on the surface of Jupiter, even though only 14 degrees above the horizon, so not really favourable conditions was quite amazing. Great Red Spot easily observed. Jupiter will look stunning in 5 years when it is well placed for observers in Northern latitudes. I can't recommend this telescope enough.