NexStar 127SLT

As a former professional astronomer and user of other amateur telescopes I bought this to try and introduce my children to observing and am mainly comparing this to a 6 inch Newtonian reflector with an equatorial mount which has served me well in the past, but is very large and heavy to set up, so an easier alternative was called for.The first night I used this I was hampered by cloud, so could only do a basic setup and some initial lunar observing, but I was pleased to find that this was easy to set up in a short period of time, using the quick setup guide. The lunar views I got were excellent and my kids (and even my wife!) were enthralled with the first views of the moon that we obtained.The second night, although cloud was again an issue, I managed to set the scope up fully. the set up was easy, following the instructions, although it is sometimes tricky to remember that the arrow buttons are only used for controlling the movements of the scope from the handset and not navigating the menus, however they were largely self-explanatory and made the initial setup easy. I would advise using a custom site for alignment using a smartphone with GPS (almost ubiquitous these days) to obtain the precise location, just remember you will need the location in degrees, minute and seconds of arc, rather than decimal. This is quite easy to find with a quick internet search on a smartphone however. Exact times from a reliable source, such as a synced smartphone is also required, along with your time zone. Once these are in you can choose to align the scope using any three bright stars or other celestial objects (moon or planets), simply align the object in the finder scope, then centralise in the eyepiece and align using the handset. This was done in minimal time, even with poor visibility due to cloud and the computer accurately aligned the scope at the first attempt with no need for firmware updates or similar for the handset. Following alignment I used the sky tour to find appropriate objects and after checking that the sky model was correct (it was able to find the moon without difficulty in the solar system mode) I used the handset to move to Andromeda, which was visible as a fuzzy patch, despite poor visibility and quite bad light pollution. The tracking seems to work fairly well and will keep an object in view for a significant amount of time (quite sufficient for real-time observing using the eyepiece), but did exhibit some element of drift, so would not be suitable for deep sky astrophotography, but this is to be expected with an alt-azimuth mount, as compared to an equatorial setup.Unfortunately, the sky conditions deteriorated further preventing any more testing on other objects, but overall this telescope is easy to set up and provides a quick means of finding astronomical objects. As a starter scope at a reasonable price it would seem that it is difficult to beat. In terms of power, I did buy the external battery pack which allows extended observing and this seems to be the best way to power the scope as while using the internal 8xAA batteries would avoid any problems with cord entanglement, the lack of battery life may limit it without a substantial supply. Cord length and wrapping would be even more of an issue with a mains powered supply and could be problematic for anything more than a small distance outside. The scope does need power to operate though and cannot really be operated without it, which is definitely a downside if you were wanting the use it in an unpowered alt-azimuth mode.Overall, this seems to provide a good observing experience for the aperture and price and is highly recommended for a beginner. Obviously, you could get a larger aperture without the goto function for the same price, but this really wins on convenience. I look forward to may happy nights observing with my kids in the near future.

I'm not professional, these are just my impressions.WARNING 1: this might be a begining of an expensive hobby! You will likely want accessories, filters, eyepieces, and maybe larger aperture for deep sky. Search for what you can see with a telescope (especially if you're interested in Nebulae/galaxies) if it's you first one to manage expectations.WARNING 2: you won't see details and colours you see in pictures online including mine (except maybe for Moon). Cameras are far more sensitive and have longer exposures than our eyes. Search Orion Nebula or M81 through a 5, 8, 10 inch telescope for example to have an idea and compare with pictures.Overall, I'm very happy with the telescope, optics seem quite good without noticeable chromatic aberrations, tracking is OK with options to fine-tune during use.After using this, I'm curious to try something with a larger aperture to see more details in deep sky, but it doesn't mean I'm enjoying this telescope any less. For me it hits a good balance of power, ease of use, and portability. Though 8-inch aperture ones would probably last you much longer if you're going to get into the hobby more seriously, those are much more expensive and heavy.You are paying a premium for goto functionality and compact design compared to some other 5-inch options, but I found goto to be very helpful especially at first.This vs a Dobsonian:Observing with a tripod is so much easier especially when what you're looking at is low. Optical tube is much more compact compared to Dob of comparable aperture and f-ratio, but later would probably be cheaper. As far as I can tell, a typical Newtonian reflector would be far less tolerant to collimation issues than this design. Learning with this is certainly easier.If it's your first telescope - be prepared you won't see the colours and details you see in pictures online. Those are captured with cameras with longer exposures and higher sensitivity than human eyes and are heavily processed. This being said, I got this picture of Orion Nebula with an old unmodified DSLR through this telescope in a single exposure, no stacking or additional hardware.What can you see?Moon - amazing! Very bright, very sharp clear small details, no weird colours.Planets - they appear about small pea-sized, rings of Saturn are clearly visible, as well as bands of Jupiter (in colour). You can get them bigger with additional eyepieces or Barlow lenses, but with ones I got (admittedly not the highest quality) I couldn't see more details - same thing just bigger and a little blurrier.Deep sky objects - probably the coolest thing to photograph, but visually seeing it for the first time it's amazing how dim those are in general. I could see Orion Nebula and some other DSOs. In Orion Nebula I could see general shape, but no colour when observing from Peak District. You can probably see more from a darker site, but I haven't tested it. Overall the aperture is considered small for visual DSO observation, but I could see something.Moon, snow, atmospheric conditions (e.g. turbulent air) will all affect your observation. Relative positions of earth to other planet also affects the details you see.Mount, focuser etc:I've read complaints about the mount not being sturdy enough online. It's definitely more shaky than a heavy Dobsonian, but for me it's perfectly useable. You do need to wait a couple seconds after adjusting focus for it to get stable, but you absolutely can get clear view and pictures after that.GoTo depends on how good your alignment is and has couple clever features - there is a "precision goto" option in the menu where it first navigates to nearby easy to see object for you to correct error and then it goes to actual target.Mount doesn't fold flat with optical tube as SE model does.The tripod is a bit bigger than a typical photo tripod when folded.If you're thinking of getting this and using mount for later optical tube upgrades, search for mount limits - you probably won't put much more onto it. I've read online people ignoring limits and putting 6se and even 8se on it, but it will be even shakier and I have no idea how long it will last if you did it and I doubt warranty will cover it.You need to align red dot finder and the telescope before observation, otherwise finding anything is very difficult.The mount is Alt-Az, as opposed to equatorial if it makes difference for you.

This telescope is my first, and a great way to get into astronomy, have had it a couple of months now. And it is so much fun, it was so simple to get going, I had it up and running in ten mins on my first go!!,the planets and moon through this are great, Jupiter is my fave, looks like a white pea with a couple of reddish lines going through it, and 4to7little dots next to it(moons), don't sound great but remember this is a small low priced telescope(great value for the money),you are not gonna see loads with this. But, it will teach you so much about the night sky,and it's really portable, i carry it in a big bag, and it takes only ten minutes to get it out and running, the goto is not 100percent accurate, but it points you in the right direction, and your own brain works out the rest( makes you feel useful), the eye pieces you get are quite good, get a Barlow and it's all you need, I bought some really expensive ones, but on the intention of a much bigger scope in a year or 2, they don't make a great deal of difference with this low powered scope, it really is a great learning tool tho, and I'll never get rid of it, as it will great for my 2 year old in a few years time .And highly recommend it as a beginners only telescope