Received the 102mm Mak today. Exceeded all my expectations.
Saturn: Cassini, banding on planet, shadow of planet on rings, inner translucent ring (donno what it's called). All there without even trying.
Star clusters: nice clean star images, no complaints whatsoever.
Omega cent: a fuzzball, no stars resolved from my light polluted location.
Jupiter: Quite a lot of detail around the cloud belts. Most impressed for so little aperture. I could just make out the shadow of Europa on the surface, the size of which seems to be right on the resolving limit of the scope. About 125x seemed optimal for viewing Jupiter.
Moon: beautiful.
It works well with the binoviewer too (without a corrector
), despite the small aperture.
Star test shows collimation is just a little bit out. I have to read up on collimating Maks.
It is a
tiny scope. Practically fits in the palm of my hand. And I think it will work fine with my camera tripod if I manage to balance it. 1300mm focal length is short enough even for the larger DSOs and it is ideal for viewing planets. Would make a great beginner's scope if compact size is important. It is pricey new though: Andrews has the OTA on the website for $599. I got this for $300 and it is immaculate, like new.
... plenty of daytime potential in the scope too...
my new portable scope - it's here!
), so it won't be paid for till tomorrow (being Labour day holiday today). It's for all those occasions when I wish I had a scope but the bulk of the Dob makes it impractical to take along. I just got to get an equally portable mount. Maybe it will work on a camera tripod with a slow motion adapter. 
