SkyMax 102 (4" Maksutov)

[rwilkinson]

The Society has recently purchased one of these as an "Optical Tube Assembly" (i.e. including star-diagonal, two eyepieces and a red-dot finder) to fit on our existing mounts.

It's very small and light (even our EQ2 mount will carry it easily) but has a focal length of 1.3m, so it's good for planetary imaging: see this "first-light" image of Mars which I took with it:
http://www.boltonastro.co.uk/gallery/di ... =8&pid=746
It's base has a 1/4" thread for mounting directly onto a photo-tripod, but it's easy enough to get or make an adaptor plate to put it on a standard dovetail mount.

It even comes with it's own shoulder-bag, and at under £170 it's fantastic value!

[rwilkinson]

It's worth noting that I got much better results with it when mounted on my CG5, rather than an EQ2 or NexStarSLT

[Amartin]

I just have to echo Ross's comments this is a fantastic little scope that punches way above its physical size suggests. I had both this on the goto mount supplied & my 6 inch Newtonian. Looking at mars there was no difference at all. I do have to say that the conditions were horrendous last night but all the same I was very impressed.