My first telescope was an Skywater 5.1" 130mm Newtonian Reflector.



It orignally came with a motor driven EQ2 mount. A 10mm and 25 mm eyepeice with x2 barlow lens. Also a red dot finder. I've changed the mount for a EQ5 that I picked up from Kelling Heath for £80.

Its easy to setup and polar align and I've had some fun with the telescope and peformed plenty of web-cam imaging. I still have the telescope in a wooden box that I made.



Even though I have the 11" I'm sure the is a lot more I can do with this scope

Carl and I certainly had some good views of a number of Messier objects with this little 'scope at Kelling Heath, in 2007 and 2008.

Its original EQ3 mount was a bit "whackery" (as Gerald would say), but once mounted on the EQ5 it was much improved. And adding a webcam and Barlow lens, we got good images of Jupiter in 2008, even though it was quite low in the sky.

But the one downside we found is that (although it has a T2 thread on the focus tube) its focal plane isn't far enough outside the tube to allow prime-focus imaging with a DSLR attached.