I've just been outside with this scope, to assess how much my latest tweaks improved performance.
At 30x it is very pleasing, with well defined stars. At 90x, it is hard to get a good focus on bright stars, but I can see the rings of Saturn more distinctly than ever before through this scope and I can easily see a few moons of Saturn as well.
OTOH, my 60mm f11.7 still outperforms this scope.
The main factor degrading optical performance is that the secondary mirror is too small for the primary even though the secondary obstruction is very large (twice the diameter of the mirror itself). The effective aperture is probably around 90-100mm minus a large central obstruction and thick spider vanes.
But it is still exciting to use this scope; it does a good job at low magnifications and the Dob mount makes it very usable. You can also take it to the beach to close-in on ships/whales/seals ... far out at sea.
4.5" Dobsonian telescope - free to good home - all gone!!
Scope is still free to good home. To give you an idea of optical performance: you will probably see no more with this 114mm Newt than you would with a good 70mm long-tube achromat. But the dob mount will be a lot more user-friendly than a wobbly EQ mount you might get with a small aperture refractor.
