For some unfathomable reason, some weeks ago, I fell in love with maks. They are so tiny and sweet and attract unconditional love. I only have another telescope, a 6" reflector with 750 mm focal length. This telescope gives me a lot of fun with all possible DSO I am interested in searching and admiring from my bortle 5 suburban sky. Planet season recently started in mid of summer 2024 and the sights of Saturn of Jupiter I could get with the 6" scope were not so intriguing, even with a 6 mm ocular.

Therefore, I started thinking of something with a longer focal length to achieve good magnifications. Moreover, my 7 years old son, approx 1.3 m tall, could not reach the ocular height of my reflector.

This scope fulfilled all my needs:
1) It's teeny tiny mak
2) It's sweet, and light, and portable (grab-and-go!)
3) It has a lousy tripod and mount, but perfectly suited for its weight
4) It has good optics and gives goods view of the jupiter, saturn, and moon
5) It's relatively inexpensive, if you consider the whole package (lousy tripod, lousy mount, lovely mak)
6) My son can operate it and look through the ocular (let's bring another family member in astronomical financial disasters!)
7) The scope can be transported in a small gym bag
8) Yes, it has vibrations while moving, but they last relatively short

What I don't like about it:
1) the red dot finder is placed in a position which makes it basically unusable (I have to crank my neck to point to anything higher than 20-30 degrees)
2) the field of view of makkobert (the nickname of my baby mak) is ridiculously narrow. Coming from my other telescope (6"/750mm) I could have about 1 degree with a 20mm/68degrees ocular. I was usually doing starhopping with the telescope, not the RDF.
3) Given the RDF and the narrow FOV: you can use it out of the box only to look at planets and moon. Easy to point at.
4) The mount does not have a lever to quickly move the scope.
5) The mak cannot be collimated. But it arrived well collimated and FLO assured me that it would be a warranty case if it lost collimation within the warranty period.
6) the provided diagonal is not so high quality. Let's see how it performs.
7) It has the power of attracting cloudy nights and bad weather upon delivery

What I will do next:
1) Install a RACI finder (the StellaLyra one seems exactly what I need) --> This would allow me to do star hopping (in my bortle 5 sky)
2) Maybe keep the RDF attached to a multiple finder shoe for the initial aim at a bright star
3) install a hook in the tripod bracket/ocular holder to add some weight. It should make the system more stable
4) Try to look at brights DSO (globular clusters) and double starts. With the provided RDF, this is practically not possible.

Summary: Perfect grab-and-go telescope. Not for beginners.

Breathtaking.
I mean my reference points are the pair of Celestron Skymaster 15x70 I have had for a couple of years and some distant memories of my grandpa's Dobsonian in the 90's but still .
I was lucky enough to have two cloudless nights and got to enjoy the setup right away.
Jupiter and its moons, the rings of Saturn, even a smudgy Orion nebula, were all beyond my expectations. Especially from the center of a major city.
The 10mm eyepiece and the focus knob could be better, I guess I will upgrade the one and improve my skill with the other.
The other eye piece is quite acceptable.

Arrived well packed and in 4 calendar days (on the other side of the planet).
Team is fast to answer questions and provides good advice.

Fast delivery, well packed. Telescope is excellent for beginner like me. Thanks

I got this after a year of watching my 100p newtonian on an eq1 gathering dust. This is a far better option, the build quality is so much better, no collimation, it has that high magnification that new astronomers look for, plus a no-faff mount. Even now that it's superceded by other scopes I've bought it's still great for grab and go. Amazing for planets but I've have nice views of the Orion nebula etc, and with a planetary camera this really does take off. (A word of warning - the vixen bar is fixed, so you will struggle to use the scope with mounts where the fitting is to one side rather than on the base amsuch as AZ GTI. I solved this with tube rings but they were extremely tight fitting).

...as this is the first telescope I've bought I won't be arrogant and inflict my opinion on the comparative qualities of the scope itself

Having said that, I'm happy with it and it's lived up my expectations garnered from the reviews that far more qualified individuals have posted online.

The scope was well packed and arrived promptly so 10/10 for FLO.

This is the perfect grab and go and travel scope. Multiple reviews led me to this scope and I'm glad that I did the research. Sure, like they said the star diagonal needs to be replaced as well as the 10mm eyepiece,but the contrast and sharp views of the moon and Jupiter made me smile.
I'm 74 and the light weight and ease of transport are important. It'll be perfect for our upcoming trip to Southern Morocco. And I'm looking forward to the sights to come...if the weather cooperates. Ahh astronomy in Scotland!
Thank you FLO. 😎

Bought this telescope a few weeks ago. My previous scope had a telrad red-dot-finder - but I thought I would try the RDF that comes with this telescope. Sadly I didn't get on with the RDF, so have now ordered and fitted a telrad - and it makes it easier for me to use.
Other than the Red dot finder that wasn't to my taste - everything else about this telescope is great. The mount build quality is really good, the tripod is stable and the viewing is incredible (full moon was amazing). The mount is also very easy to use and move about. The only other thing to consider is a 'dew shield' - they are also sold here on FLO website - will keep the dew off the lens.

Bought this for my son for christmas but we did test it out. He is very impressed, easy to use, excellent quality. Its a very sturdy piece of equipment. Recorded the moon even great experiance

At last, a lightweight stable altaz mount with proper slow motion controls. I particularly like the extension column supplied and the speed with which you can exploit that gap in the clouds. The 102mm Maksutov performs well but as usual the eyepieces supplied leave a lot to be desired; fortunately, Maks aren't very fussy and almost anything else is a suitable upgrade. My Vixen Plossls work really well with this scope. Superb views of Moon and planets, can't wait to try it on Saturn.