Hi,
I'm currently looking to buy a telescope for a bit of casual visual observing, largely planetary/lunar. Portability, compact size and relatively quick set up are important to me, and I'm also trying to keep to a fairly modest budget.
Based on my online research (and essentially zero actual experience) the
Celestron Nexstar 127SLT and
Sky-Watcher BK MAK127 + AZ SynScan packages seem to fit the bill. Both of these are 5" f/12 'aluminised spot' type Mak-Cass OTAs on light duty alt-az goto mounts, and both are available from Andrews Communications for a tempting A$999.
The question is whether I am right in thinking that these telescopes would be a good choice given my requirements, and if so which of the two would be the better choice? The specs are essentially identical (about the only difference I can see is that the Celestron comes with a red dot finder while the Sky-Watcher has a straight 6 x 30 finderscope) so differentiating between the two would come down to things like quality of the optics, quality of the focus mechanisms, stability of the mounts and the ease of setup/alignment/use of the mounts. Anyone with experience of these OTAs and/or mounts care to comment on their merits (or lack thereof)?