Update after a couple of weeks’ usage (and some photos)
Well, I’ve been using this telescope for a couple of weeks now, and I’m still VERY happy with it. It has well and truly met and exceeded my expectations - which is to say, it has out-performed what I should probably have reasonably expected for the price!
Firstly - a correction: I said in my first post that the telescope rear cell was made of metal - after looking more closely and tapping / knocking it repeatedly, I think that the telescope back is in fact some sort of plastic / resin. It feels very solid and tough, not at all “plasticky”, and gives a nice solid “metallic” sound when you tap it. The two ports are both metal, so there's no concern about the ports wearing out from frequent changing of eyepieces and other accessories. It looks like it will be very durable, and I have no complaints with the build quality.
As noted in my first post, I have replaced the original 8x21 finderscope with a Red Dot Finder (RDF) - the attached photos show that the supplied finderscope is very awkwardly positioned and pretty well impossible to use for anything other than terrestrial viewing (with the OTA close to horizontal, and using the 45° erect-image prism on the back port). The RDF sits at a much more comfortable position, and is much easier to use for targeting night sky objects.
I have been using the telescope on an EQ2 mount, but I have tightened up the threads on all the knobs of the supplied Alt-Az mount, and it can hold the telescope reasonably steady, especially if you hang a bit of weight on the hook under the centre-post of the tripod. I was having a lot of trouble targeting stars and planets with the original finderscope and “sloppy” threads on the mount knobs, but with everything tightened up and using the RDF, I find that I can now target and hold stars and planets pretty well - although the lack of slow-motion controls makes it pretty awkward to track an object, especially at higher magnifications. I am prepared to revise my previous assessment - the supplied Alt-Az tripod is just about adequate as a lightweight travel mount (but the EQ2 is MUCH better!) - and of course, the Alt-Az mount is a lot simpler to use for terrestrial use of stationary targets (with the supplied 45° erect-image prism on the rear port).
Experimenting with the supplied Kellner eyepieces a bit, I have found that the 9mm is perfectly adequate optically; pretty much indistinguishable from my Plossl 10mm in terms of image quality and ease / comfort of use. The 25mm also gives a good image as long as you are looking absolutely down the eyepiece axis, but “blacks out” as soon as you move just a bit “off-axis”. My 25mm Plossl has very similar image quality, but is much more forgiving of eye position, and since neither of the supplied Kellners has a rubber eyecup, I much prefer to use the Plossls, or my 7.5 - 22.5 mm zoom lens for general flexibility. I also use a 40mm Plossl to get a wider view (although with 1200mm FL, this is NOT a wide-angle telescope!)
I have found that there is a slight image-shift when you use the built-in flip-mirror, so that the centre of the image shifts slightly to one side as you swap between the two ports. It is quite repeatable, so that when you flip back again, the image is right where you left it - my guess is that the flip-mirror pivot is not perfectly aligned perpendicular to the OTA axis, rather than slop / play of the flip mechanism. You might find your target is slightly out of view if you have a very wide-angle eyepiece in one port, and a very short focal-length eyepiece in the other, but I have no problems flipping between a 25mm and a 10mm, for example. It's not a big deal, but it may mean that the 90° port is not as perfectly collimated as the straight-through port. (Is this why most Maks on the market these days don't have a built-in flip-mirror any more?) It hasn't caused me any real grief, but I mention it in case it is important to a potential buyer.
I am awaiting delivery of a threaded T-Adapter which will allow me to mount my DSLR body onto the straight-through rear port for prime focus terrestrial and astronomical photography - it will be interesting to see whether the “image shift” and “focus shift” issues are a major problem if I use the 90° port for viewfinding and then switch to the back port (and re-focus) for imaging. I hope to post a few sample shots in the next few days.
(P.S.: Yes, I just realised that in the photos with the supplied finderscope mounted, it is installed backwards!
Rest assured - that isn't the reason for the problems I was having with the finderscope; I just mounted it back on to take some pictures of the "as supplied" kit, and didn't pay any attention to which way it was facing!
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