Skywatcher Maksutov

[durr]

[/td]	Anyone bought this telescope or the 180mm model and if so what are your thoughts about the optical quality and engineering.SKYMAX-150 PRO (OTA) 150mm 6” (f/1800) Maksutov–Cassegrain Telescope. Many thanks for your help in advance. Steve

[russ]

I had the 150 Pro for a while. It was a lovely scope, preferred it to the similarly priced Celestron C6. Contrast was superior, lovely tight stars and knockout views of the moon and Jupiter. The focus suffered with image shift but it was on a par with the C6 i owned. And easily cured with a Borg Helical focuser. The image shift on mine wasn't as bad as reported on the early models.

Also bought an SCT thread adapter to use a Meade f6.3 reducer. That combo worked very well indeed.

Deepsky views were better than you would think and only marginally inferior to the faster f10 C6. Really there was nothing in it.

Like the C6, or any closed tube scope, it suffered with dew problems. And cool down would be a major headache if kept in a warm place.

Nice scope and a thumbs up from me.

[durr]

Thanks Rus very informative, Steve

[Ant]

I have the Skymax 127 and Skymax 180.

I had first light with the 180 the other day and managed to get a half tidy venus. Visually it was stunning!

The corrector started to dew up even though I had the shield and dew band. The focuser on the 180 is better that the 127.

But they are both great to image through.

I didn't have any luck using the Meade 6.3 reducer on the 127 model. With the 300D is gave quite severe vignetting.

I sold the reducer before being able to try it with the 180!

Ant