We got this telescope for our 12 year old son as a Christmas gift and were very disappointed when we began assembling it to find that the set screws on the focuser that hold in the diagonal were already stripped

I simply folded it and SNAP

overally it s good base to build on

I did a little bit of research and found that I could afford this one

I plan to purchase a good 10 Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain

Many of the same reviews give the scope itself a good review, but complain about the tripod