I purchased this telescope as a step up from toy scope my son bought at a school book fair. The scope is good for the money however the red dot finder is too bright to be useful. The mount is not as sturdy as I hoped it would be. I purchased this scope on sale and consider it a very good value for money. Optics Planet has been a good company to do business with.

The telescope itself is quite good. The optics are great, and it's useful that it comes with a correcting eyepiece. I suggest getting the Celestron Accessory Kit, which includes 5 eyepieces + 2x Barlow, and 7 Colour Filters to get some great results. Unfortunately the telescope's red-dot star finder is useless. It's too bright to see through when turned on, and since it has no zoom, you can't get close to the object. Also, the slow motion controls seem to wobble the whole telescope when you touch them, when using high manignications. Overall it's a great product, and for the money, you can't find anything better

I picked up this telescope about a month ago for myself and my daughter. We are just starting into astronomy. This telescope was very easy to set up. It only took me about 10 minutes to set it up out of the box. It is very solidly built. The tripod is rock solid, as is the EQ mount. We have been out looking at Jupiter and the Comit 17p/Holmes. The telescope is easy to aim with it's red dot finder. The images have been very clear. We were able to bring Holmes in close enough that you could see it's dust cloud in 3D. We are looking forward to many years of observing with this telescope. I would definitly recommend it to anyone looking for a very solidly built telescope!