Thanks for the input.

Let me list it out this way.

It's better than what I have, especially with the Plossl eyepieces.
It is portable.
It will get used more, just by virtue of the easier set up.
I can think of at least 3 things in my house to set it on at home.

Eventually, I'll move up to something bigger for home and it will still be a good travel scope.

I can't seem to find the sky-watcher for sale in the states, only canada. They look like cool little scopes though.

Wow! I ordered it yesterday around 12:30pm. According to UPS tracking, it arrived at the Addison facility 11 hours later.

This is a lovely little scope. I bought one for my fathers' birthday last year.

Pros:
- Compact. *Very* compact.
- Good optics.
- Looks great.

Cons:
- Poor focuser (wrap a couple of loops of PTFE tape around it to clear up some of the slop).
- Single arm spider makes proper collimation almost impossible - I couldn't get the secondary quite centred under the focuser.
- Poor accessories. Pretty standard for Synta kit. Modified Achromat eyepieces. Get ye some Astro-Tech Paradigms instead.

For the money, it's a fantastic little thing. I can heartily recommend it.

Here it is!









These are much better eye pieces than I had before.


Super easy to set up.


The collimation can't be off to far looking at it this way.

Joe,

The collapsible design is really nice and it feels really solid. There is almost no plastic in it, and none of it is structural.

There is a black light shield to behind the secondary to block any light coming directly into the focuser. By the way, the focuser is a bit tight on mine. I'll have to see how it is after some use. I am planning on a shroud, possibly using black craft foam. Fabric would be harder to do because there are only two trusses there wouldn't me anything to keep the fabric from sagging in the middle.

I did get to spend a little time last night looking at the moon with it. The contrast looked pretty good in that short session.

I will definitely bring this down to the Adler one of these nights. I am already brainstorming on a wooden carrying case that will also serve as a table to stand it on.

So far the focuser seems really nice. It's much smoother and easier to use than the rack and pinion on my refractor.

I just came in from looking at Saturn for the first time. I had left the scope out in the garage, so it was already at ambient. I set it up on the driveway, pointed in the general direction of Saturn, used the red dot to point it at Saturn, looked through the eyepiece and there it was. Very cool.

I tried every eyepiece I have in the scope, and I was able to get Saturn into the field of view each time with in seconds. I could never do that with the refractor, it was always a pain to reacquire a target after changing EP's.

I gave up when my fingers started to go numb from the cold.

A few more adjustments on the tension, and this scope will be just right. The Alt tension seems good, but the Az was a little too stiff.

I stayed out a little longer to try and see some Lyrids, but they are still to low in the sky and my neighbors house is in the way.

I did see several O'Hare-ids though. ;D

Joe, It has a helical focuser in the usual location. Some reviews for this scope have complained about the focuser being a bit loose in the threads. The usual fix is to wrap the threads with teflon tape. So far mine seems to be fine.

Erik,

I've largely heard good things about that scope, given it's price point. Good aperture, adequate focal length, and at least it comes with Plossls (even if they are low-cost ones). I'll be interested to hear more of your thoughts about this scope, and hope I get a chance to view through it when we are both set up and viewing with Joe at Adler.

Hi Erik,

Being a short fast scope, how are the images thru the scope?
Do stars hold sharp throughout the view thru stock eyepieces?

Also being collapsible, how do you go about collimating the scope at every setup?

I have seen Orion sell their table top scopes with an option of mounting on photo tripod.
Hmm....ideal grab-n-go scope

I just checked and the vital statistics are almost exactly the same as your Vixen R130, although I would assume that the quality of the Vixen is much better.