excellent instrument for all purposes
The optics in the scope are of excellent quality, I haven't detected any hint of optical error so far, and believe me ive checked. Gives good views, and great images with the coma corrector. I've taken it out under dark skies about 5 times now, and its a lovely quality instrument. the focuser is great, very smooth action, and the fine focus is excellent and smooth. the focuser is also very strong, and uses compression rings instead of the screws digging into the eyepieces. the included coma corrector has some tricky ins and outs, but for visual use, its pretty much just drop-in and go. The finderscope is a great addition, very generous aperture for star hopping to dimmer stars when hunting galaxies, with good field of view to discern where you are in the sky. the aperture and F ratio are great for photographic use, fast exposures and good wide angle images for big dm objects like the andromeda galaxy. ive never actually been able to fit the whole disk in a 1.25" eyepiece of an 8" scope before, and its absolutely breathtaking. Only problems I could find, after a few days of use out in the field are the following: the coma corrector comes with no instructions, not really a problem if you know how to use one, and understand they can be finicky. for photographic use, you need to unscrew the assembly and attach it to a T ring using the adapter provided. for eyepieces, just drop them in the focuser with the coma corrector immediately before the eyepiece in the light path. it will give you about 95% coma correction, more if you parfocalize your eyepieces. the secondary adjustment screws; they strip out very easily, and one of them was entirely unusable by the second collimation. id recommend if you have not replaced the screws, make sure the scope is horizontal when you collimate, and check for metal filings before tilting it to an upright position, as they can fall on the primary mirror. this issue was not major though, and was a very easy fix, 70 cents at your local hardware store, make sure to get metric, and it works like a charm. Be sure to have a sturdy dovetail, as the one included is rather small, and doesn't do a good job of supporting the tube for photographic use, for visual it does the job just fine. really solid scope, good construction, excellent design. cheaper than any other scope in its class on the market, and with a coma corrector (that works fantastically) to boot. you cant get a better deal than this.
