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.