I spent an age deciding on whether to get the RC6 or the an SCT. Some of the horror stories relating to collimation nearly put me off, but I decided to take a punt and am glad I did. The focuser will be replaced, but only because I will be using an EAF focuser. I imaged for a few hours and didn’t see any focus slip on the stock focuser, not much travel in it (45mm I think). The build quality feels very good. On first inspection Collimation was off (but not massively). A quick session on the Ocal and checked with a Cheshire tool. Star test (once I’d found focus) was pretty good. One thing that lets this scope down is the fact that there were no instructions included. It’s really difficult knowing which spacers to use with a cooled Astro camera. If you’re setting for the first time then you need to be around 25.5cm from the back of the primary mirror to your camera sensor.

As the title suggests, I found the scope to be great, I have been getting great planetary images and close-ups of the moon. It's great for that as these targets are lower in the sky and only need my colour GPCAM, which is tiny. As soon as i put my 183mm, filter wheel and OAG, the focuser was not having any of it, as soon as you got anywhere close to the zenith, it gave up and slipped. Ive tightened the tension screw as much as i can and still having issues. I guess for the price, i shouldnt expect too much and Im sure im overloading the focuser, but worth bearing in mind. Having so few clear nights, its frustrating to loose half a night each time it slips
For planets and luna imaging and viewing, its awesome!!

For the price point there isn't a better scope for galaxy season. Good reach, good mirrors, good size and weight. I purchased this with the astro essentials 0.75x reducer and combined they are a very good pair optically. With the reducer in it is worth noting I have had no problems with Nina plate solving with a 533mc sensor.

There are a couple of caveats however. In my opinion you need to spend a little money on this scope to maximize it's performance. Firstly, as expected with any mirrored telescope you will need to collimate it on arrival. Mine wasn't wildly out and don't be scared away by the reputation rc's have for being a nightmare to collimate. If you can collimate a newtonian you can collimate an RC. I have, however struggled a little with tilt. I have got collimation very close but as the imaging train from visual back is sooooo long, a tilt adapter is a must if you want perfect alignment down your imaging train. The second minor issue is the focusser. It has a premium look to it but it has some slack in it internally. This is not a show stopper, but if you compare a flat taken with the focus tube wound in compared to full extension you can see the differing sag in the imaging train as the vignette moves off centre. On the plus side, if you are imaging you are not going to be moving focus from lock to lock, and once focus is set I haven't had it slip throughout the night.

So, I am saving some pennies up for a tilt adapter which I think is a must for imaging. If you buy it with this scope and the 0.75x reducer you will be getting a very capable scope with a couple of good focal lengths for just over £600. Eventually I may upgrade the focuser too but the stock one will certainly see me through for a while.

Excellent service and delivery. I kept the clouds in the box and the scope had it's first light on Friday. You get a very clean image, no distortion, flat across the field of view and minimal tilt. Was slightly out of collimation probably due to transportation, nothing a bit of tweaking didn't fix. Balance is an issue in Dec and was very back heavy as other reviewer has noted when loaded up with motor focuser, filter wheel and astrocam. For it's price point you do get a lot of quality scope for the money.

I've had the telescope for about a week now, and as always it came with clouds . Last night was clear although the moon was a bit distracting, first impressions are that this is a quality telescope, with edge to edge clarity, decent focusser, and with the extension tubes it works for all of my equipment. With and 2" diagonal, and celestron 15mm omni plossl, the views are outstanding. I can certainly recommend this.

Had proper first light with the telescope last night. Very impressed with the quality of the scope. My stars were round right to the edge of the field of view and the scope was perfectly collimated out of the box. Focal length is just long enough to give excellent magnification on galaxies and clusters but not too long to make image scale a problem.

The only slight negative with the scope is that even when mounted on full extent of vixen dovetail the scope is badly out of balance on the declination axis. I have had to purchase a counterweight to fit to the front of the telescope. This problem is further compounded by the fact that I needed to fit all four (ie. 4”) of draw tube extension onto the focuser to get the scope into focus. Once you add filter wheel, oag and camera it is very out of balance. I suspect visual astronomers will also have same balance issue but not to the same extent.

The other minor point is that there is no M48 or M42 thread or adaptor provided for attaching to the focuser. The only means of attaching cameras and eye pieces is using the supplied 2” or 1.25” compression ring with a nose piece fitted to camera/oag/filter wheel. The compression rings are of the anti marring type.

Bottom line is that you are paying for a scope and no useful additional accessories, but at the price I appreciate that all the investment has gone into optimising the quality of the scope. I quite happy purchasing the extra components to complete the setup.