Why, you may ask, is Ed asking for user reports for these scopes? No, I am not planning to buy one.
My interest lies in the fact the Orion SkScanner 100 and the Skywatcher Herritage 100P are Newtonian designs that have, as far as I can tell, fixed primary mirrors. There is no provision for collimation of the primary mirror. I would consider these a step above the 76 mm Funscope and FirstScopes that also have fixed primary mirrors.
In addition the
Orion StarSeeker line goes up to 150 mm and chances are these same OTA are available under another name. I think
Skywatcher Star Discovery may be the same OTA, likewise having fixed primary mirrors. If you are interested, the 150P is reviewed in this video. At about 7 minutes he speaks extensively about the fixed primary nature of the OTA for 3 minutes.
https://www.youtube....h?v=mhhs65AWdCk
I have been reading the user reviews on the SkyScanner 100, the least expensive of the Orion group, and they have been quite good, even among people who clearly have experience and have other more expensive scopes. And an internet search for threads about collimation issues of the Orion scopes has not produced any results.
My interest is to see how these perform over time. Some of these have been on the market for more than 5 years but I would consider them of recent design. It could come out of the factory well collimated but do they hold? Or do they degrade in a year and get put in the garage sale box? I can't find any such reports.
I might consider recommending one of these to someone and want to feel confident that they are going to hold up well for 5 years or more.
If you have one of these or another Newtonian with a fixed primary mirror of 100 mm or more, I would love to hear your experience, good or bad.
Please, I am only asking for user reports not a debate on the merit of having collimation provision on a Newtonian. Let the products and the users tell us if this is a viable design.