Great scope - Sky Watcher 12in. Flextube 300P Collapsible Dobsonian Telescope S11740

This is a seriously big and bulky scope. Not so much the OTA, but the base is really wide and bulky. If I had more money, I'd gone for an obsession telescope, but hey it's 4 times the price. In the end, I'll move it around with my car, is not that I have to carry it for miles on my back, and a foldable trolley costs just $25. I am not sure a SCT would be less heavier: once you are in the 12", everything is heavy, a SCT will have a very heavy fork and very heavy tripod, and good luck lifting the OTA and fork to place it on the tripod!

As a cloudynight user has reviewed, the focuser requires an adapter for the 2" eyepieces, which is weird but I'm sure there's a good reason for it. I didn't like the finder scope, not useful for me, I replaced it with a $40 telrad and I couldn't be happier: it's simple, you just need to align it once; if you remove it and put it back on it is still aligned, I love it!! Finding stuff is easy if you have charts at hand, and you don't need special Telrad charts.

The eyepieces the scope comes with are cheappy, but it's always the case. I bought a ES 82 30mm for now which gives 50x, then later I'll check for a 14/15mm and something between 9-7mm.

The movement of the scope is smooth and well balanced. I was very worried that with a manual scope I wouldn't be able to find the objects, but I'm happy I haven't settled for a smaller but computerized scope. Let alone the cost, with a manual scope I really have the fun of *doing* stargazing and I get to learn the sky so much quicker.

If you go 12", and you should, and want a Newtonian for the price, this is the one you should get.

Clear skies!