Rigel-7

Thanks John looks nice. Would this make a better all round scope than the ones above ?

Not impossible - Celestron 90lcm without the goto would be spot on...

Portable, cheap and useful. Seems a set of simple requirements but for the moment I am still baffled. What I am looking for is 90mm refractor at about f7-8 at the £150 mark less than 750mm long. I'm not fussy. Currently I am considering the following: Skymax 90 on eq1 - great planetary scope Evostar 90 on az3 - good planetary scope but at F10 too long Mercury 705 on az3 - aperture too small but good size Evostar range - too fast Heritage 130 - not suitable. Please help.....

I was looking at the st102 but with the lp I may be better with planet viewing than Dso.

The article I am referring to is here Astrotreff - Astronomie Treffpunkt - Skywatcher Heritage 130P Flextube Testbericht

To re-iterate I returned mine. Optics should be sold clean, no paint and no fingerprints. If all contaminated scopes are returned then Skywatcher / Synta will finally up their qa. I have some dust on my scope from a few months use but you can hardly see it. When your not using the scope cover it straight away - very simple.

With my work I am constantly switching between town and home, light and dark. I am finding myself more in town these days and just need a little scope that I can quickly put up, get my fix and put away. I have looked at the 130p heritage, 102 startravel az3 and skymax 127 syntrak while also considering sticking a skymax 90 on a home dob mount. There are some nice Orions but these are seriously over priced in the uk. I was going to get the 130p heritage but read a damning review of the optics. The sky is full of clouds and the children are full of chocolate, please help....

If you do decide to keep it I understand the best way to clear it would be to remove the primary and give it a squirt with distilled water with the mirror at an angle and the paint fleck at the bottom. May as well wait for the mirror to get messed up a bit first. Maybe somebody could confirm this.

Had the same issue with my new 150p. I think they are paint flecks. The supplier offered me another scope which on opening also had flecks. He then volunteered to remove them by taking out the primary. I may be old fashioned but shouldn't optics be clean. I returned mine. Synta appear to have some qa issues.

Looks like the supatrak now comes in black but the mountings look different in pictures. Can anybody clarify if there are any other differences... Quality ?

Thanks chaps. I was planning to use an 80ed for photography later on but it's nice to know that I can start with the 200.

Any 150pds or 200pds owners out there?

Yes I really like the 150p, I am looking for a conclusive review on the PDS models. Does the larger secondary compromise visual viewing ?

If anybody from the BBC is watching Kate Humble is a good presenter and was very good in rough science but for science programs my money would be on Dr Alice Roberts IMHO.

... and you will still be bitterly disappointed unless you are around 5 years old, thank goodness they put it on after the watershed. I travelled to Ecuador to drive along a road ... If it wasn't Kate Humble ... Grrrrr !