[anthony2302749]

Hi John

What an excellent review on the AOE152L. Prior to getting aperture fever I owned the 127mm (eg AOE127L) model which I purchased from <ST1BATSC</ST1. I fully agree with your review about the optics.

The optics on the 5” where fully collimated prior to picking it up from <ST1BATSC</ST1 and I was able to compare my scope against a 6” Synta. Though the Synta was slightly larger in aperture it suffered greatly from chromatic aberration while the 5” seemed to be better corrected for it, though it still displayed a fringe of blue/violet colour around bright objects.

Side by side I found that the 5” offered a sharper more contrast view of the Moon and Jupiter as compared to the 6” Synta. On a one good night of viewing, under dark skies, I was able to discern galaxies down to 13 Mag plus (true, it real happen).

The scope was a big hit when I took it along to a Mars viewing night for the public back in 2003. The photographer for local paper was there and he like it so much that he took several photos, one of which ended up on the front cover of the local paper.

Anthony