TheSkySearchers

After much debate within myself:
"Should I get it?" "Should I not get it?"
"I already have 9 working telescopes and 2 other telescope projects!"
"My wife won't understand if I buy another telescope!"
And then finally reading a post from a member of another club I belong to: The60mmTelescopeClub@groups.io, and from watching this video review below, I decided to pull the plug!

https://youtu.be/4cVid9aXkD8

It's called the Sarblue Planet Mate 60mm Maksutov. It has a focal length of 750mm and includes a nice little 20mm reverse kellner eyepiece for 37.5x magnification, a phone adapter, and a not so good tabletop tripod. The interesting feature of this scope is that it has a lid on top of the OTA that opens up to reveal the internal mechanism, I imagine for the educational value.

I ordered it yesterday from Amazon for $109.99 and it arrives today!

Interesting, I look forward to your thoughts of it.

Congratulations Bruce! I will be interested in reading what you think about it also.

Yup. Will be curious to read your thoughts / experiences.

Neat little telescope and what a great review. Interesting reverse Kellner and prism diagonal.

Curious to see your first light report Starbru.

Congrats Bruce! Looking forward the first light report.

The price isn't too debilitating.
I look forward to reading of your experience with is little gem.

Ooo, that is very interesting I’m thinking of my Grandson with help from his dad... both for terrestrial and a bit of astronomy...

Looks like a fun, but performing scope. Enjoy, please add me to the list to hear your thoughts.

Nine telescopes already!!
I recognize this. A typical case of morbus telescopio. I have it too. Incurable, you must learn to live with it. The well known medicine "buy quality, cry once", doesn't work long.
There is only one medicine for minor cases: go out and observe as much as you can with all of them. That will keep the fever down a bit. When clouded keep inventing innovations for them. Once you stop observing, you will be lost and upgrade to the most expensive final stage: collector.

Never mind this nonsens,
Have a good time with your new telescope!

Congrats on the purchase. One can never have too many scopes or binos.

I received the little 60mm MAK yesterday just before the sun set. I was surprised how light the package was! I was also a little surprised after opening that box, how little the box is containing the scope. Looking outside, I noticed the sky already clouding up! After dark, the clouds were everywhere with just a few bright stars poking through. So First Light will have to be postponed until the clouds clear!

I opened the well-packed box to find the telescope with capped prism diagonal attached, eyepiece with caps, phone adapter, and tripod , all covered individually with plastic bags and placed tightly in separate compartments within the styrofoam. The OTA is plastic, as is the diagonal, phone adapter, and eyepiece barrel. The tabletop tripod is mostly plastic with metal legs and hardware. The tripod is more stable than I thought it would be, and is easy to operate smoothly with just enough stiffness to it. You would think the use of plastic would be a negative, but in this case it is well executed, with none of the telescope accessories having excess plastic showing. The OTA seems very robust.

The very basic "finder" is made of two in-line plastic protrusions pre-formed in the removable plastic "hood". I will definitely upgrade the finder to either a laser, red dot, or small raci finder. The included tabletop tripod I would use in a pinch, but a full sized camera tripod would be easier to use. I will post again when seeing conditions allow. It looks like clouds again tonight!

With the ability to open up the scope easily, it will be easy to inspect the optics and see if it needs to be cleaned.