Sky WatcherVirtuoso

Excellent optics! I bought this baby Mak for the moon, sun, and planets. The only reason I didn't rate five stars is the viewfinder is only good for when you are using the scope with the sun filter. The flip up disk idea works great for centering the sun but for other targets, it is total junk. I was forced to spend another bill to get a proper laser finder,bracket, and mounting plate. Red dot finders on this scope will require you to crouch low and contort your body to use them. Another thing to consider is what you will put it on to observe comfortably. This took a while to figure out but I bought a sturdy musician's keyboard stand (or projector stand). It is adjustable in height and has a small footprint so I can use the scope while seated. I like the mount. The buttons are well placed and easy to use. I like the idea of dual encoders too. I plan to buy another mount for my larger scopes which has the Synscan controller and the Synscan is compatible with this mount. So, I will have a quick grab and go, fully goto, tracking scope. However, using the scope as it is really makes things simple. Just center Polaris in the eyepiece and turn the scope on. That simple procedure cuts out a lot of time!I was stunned at how razor sharp the optics are. I use a Newt and a Schmidt Cass normally but this little Mak's optics really impressed me.UPDATE: I wanted to see how accurate the tracking was so I carefully aligned the scope on Polaris, turned it on, and centered Jupiter in the eyepiece. I went in the house, made a drink, and when I came back in about fifteen minutes, Jupiter was still very near the center of the 32mm eyepiece. I used the scope for several hours and it tracked very well all evening. Jupiter was gorgeous. Saw the cloud bands, four moons, and nice color. Terrific value for a grab and go scope.

The good: easy setup, decent optics, very portable. Setting a track for terrestrial work is straightforward, but I'm missing a practical application. The mirror diagonal really helps viewing the night sky in comfort.Not so good: manual suggests abilities that are missing, especially in photographic panoramic motion. I wanted to do a 360° pan, the manual says to set the first and second go-to points the same, but when hitting the go button nothing moves. Setting almost identical points by slewing 355° and hitting go it only moves the 5°. The finder scope is poor quality that appears to have a negative eye relief, and does not have a diagonal, making locating stars or planets distinctly painful.The not too bad: it arrived missing an altitude scale required for setting celestial alignment. A little painter's tape and a level app on my phone let me set 0° and local 38.1 and a compass let me approximate celestial North. Handy, since Polaris is very faint until a few hours after sunset.The untenable: tech support appears to be missing inaction. Email bounced, and no response to the phone message I left five days later. The manual differs from reality in fairly important ways. Bright stars like Sirius don't resolve to points, but dimmer stars and the moon do okay. The electronics either stall or quit entirely, requiring a restart and fresh polar alignment.I suspect that functional tech support could resolve a lot of my complaints, and that this would make a nice grab and go scope.

I finally landed a nice night to test out this scope. I have a Celestron 8” SCT but I was looking for a compact grab and go. The 90 MAK hits the sweet spot for me and the price of this scope is hard to beat considering mount costs about $200 alone through Orion telescopes. I targeted Jupiter to start and I’m amazed at the clarity. Contrast is great and images are crisp. I hate to say that from what I can tell this $250 scope isn’t that far off my 8”. Will post more shortly...

Why this kit comes with a very good scope and some very useful mounts adapters, it does not come with a computerized control with an integrated database of stars. While they can be purchased, the suggested model is not readily available and there is any information as to which models are compatible with the motorized mount. Besides that, the telescope is very powerful and works wonderfully. I was able to view the alignment of Jupiter and its moons easily. When viewing our moon, the contours of the craters are well defined and sharp. Stargazing is more difficult, because of light pollution and cloudy weather. But with a good LPR filter, I hope to succeed in the near future.

Doesn't keep objects in the field of view very long. Even instruction manual says it will drift. Have to keep hitting adjusting button to re-center every 2 minutes. I guess it's better than by hand but not much. Everything else about scope is ok except tracking is not good. Sometimes I wonder if it was even tracking!

This unit is best suited for direct viewing only. The telescope is excellent but the tracker is VERY poor. Mine could not track better than 1/2 sidereal rate either in Alt-Az mode or Equatorial mode. So it will NOT allow any astrophotography.I returned it as I wanted an inexpensive tracker for astro photos, and considered the telescope a bonus "long lens". Again the telescope's optics and function is superb for the price - but the tracker really sucks.If you want to sit in your backyard and watch the moon or planets or stars, having to bump the slewing buttons every few minutes to keep your target in view - it's fine. Otherwise get something better.

Although it was very impressive when I set up the finder scope onto a terrestrial landmark, the little mak90 only allowed me to see just intermittantly, barely some banding on Jupiter.The mount didn't track well and needed to have max. battery charge to slew properly.Maybe the full goto function would keep it on target but the target wouldn't be seen well enough for my pleasure.

Overall , good performer - I'm trying to get it to track the night sky better. Tends to wander. I guess that's what you get with these modern 2 direction drive systems - whatever happened to a polar oriented drive that only moves in one direction - 'never had much trouble with those! Optics and attachments all function well.

Estoy feliz con este Virtuoso. El Maksutov de 90 mm realmente me tiene muy contento y satisfecho. He forzado la óptica en observación terrestre hasta 500X con buen resultado; la verdad fue por accidente, porque aunque ya de por sí pretendía forzarla con un ocular Meade de 5 mm y 100° de FOV, lo cual iba a colocarme de porrazo a 250X, la verdad es que me distraje y no noté que tenía colocada una Barlow 2X. En observación astronómica, lo he probado con la Luna y he logrado enfocar de manera nítida a 200X; si bien es cierto que podía abusar un poco más del aumento, las condiciones de seeing y turbulencia atmosférica de esa noche me lo impedían, pero apuesto a que puede dar 250X sin problema, a pesar de sus 90 mm de apertura que me indicarían un aumento teórico máximo de 180X (siguiendo la vieja regla de "el doble de la apertura en mm") la realidad es que los Maksutov pueden dar 2.5 a 3 veces la apertura del tubo. Aclimata en 20 minutos, quzá hasta en menos. La montura: sóooolida, transportable en extremo (lo dice alguien que también tiene un CPC 1100 que toma por lo menos 30 min sacarlo al patio y una hora para aclimatar), fácil de manejar para cualquier aficionado principiante, y con la posibilidad de colocarle cámaras e incluso el teléfono celular para hacer paneos sensacionales. ¿Un plus? tiene un filtro solar, así que puedes ver con seguridad las manchas del astro rey. Yo lo recomiendo mucho =) ¿Pero entonces por qué no le pongo las 5 estrellas? bien, por este detalle, así que pasemos a lo negativo: cuando me llegó mi telescopio, lo estaba desempacando y escuchaba ruido dentro del tubo, me preguntaba qué sería, hasta que detecté el motivo: una tuerca estaba suelta allá adentro. Estuve a punto de levantar mi queja y devolver, pero la verdad es que me armé de valor y desmonté la lente, retiré la tuerca y vi que era del tornillos que sujeta la colita de milano... la atornillé correctamente y reinstalé el lente. Un Mak al igual que un refractor, están colimados de serie y de por vida (de no estarlo, es motivo de incidencia y cambio de equipo automático por parte del fabricante), pero al desmontar el lente principal, temí perder colimación (a pesar de que lo hice con todo cuidado y marcando su ubicación con tape como dictan los canones. Por fortuna todo salió muy bien y ya no metí reclamación, pero que sepan que me llegó así mi tubito. Ojalá que sirva esta reseña a alguien ;)