Orion StarMax™ 127mm EQ Compact "Mak" (300 x 127mm) Telescope

I've owned 3 of these Chinese manufactured Orion scopes. All exhibited outstanding optics and one in particular rivaled planetary views through a C11 under excellent seeing conditions! The mounting is able and steady to about 150x where it starts to take on some vibration. I modified mine by adding oak tripod legs of a fixed height and this cured the aluminum leg problem so common to these scopes. The scope now damps in about .5 seconds at 200x! I also upgraded to an 8x50mm finder scope as the supplied finder is rather small. The diagonal is good but I also went to an Orion dielectric diagonal to increase contrast and the difference was noticable. Added to that a dual axis motor drive and I obtained incredible images of the moon and sun through this scope - full aperture Orion solar filter of course. So if I were to rate the scope I'd give it an excellent rating, the tripod an honest average and the mount a good with some backlash in the gearing. For a first time scope you can't beat the optics and the price. For serious planetary and lunar study or astrophotography a better tripod/mount is needed. The supplied eyepiece was excellent!