So, my take home is more or less from what Paul and Jeff and the folks that own these are been saying about the 185 and 203 scopes in all these different threads. There are clear and obvious, BUT NOT UNREASONABLE compromises that have been made to achieve the price point for these telescopes. For DSO imaging, especially when using the flattener/reducer, They will likely perform reasonable well. For visual, under normal seeing conditions, up to ~50X per inch mag, you will likely get comparable or better results to a decent C8. Once you start going over 50X per inch in really good seeing conditions these scopes will fall behind higher end competition visually. The mechanical fit and finish are generally considered to be very good.
So, at the end of the day, if you want a large refractor for DSO imaging and/or would be happy with the visual performance described above then this scope is more or less fairly priced for what it is and would make you happy, barring any quality control issues. HOWEVER, if you are used to running your scope up over 50X inch(looking at you Chas:-) and are used to the highest quality visual experience that can be had, then you would be better off either saving your pennies, or going for a good quality smaller refractor.
My entirely personal preference would be to go with a 6 inch scope of higher quality. I have one so that niche is filled, but if I did not, I would be looking for one of the TMB 152 mm LZOS triplets used, or considering the AT 150 mm EDL Doublet. Honestly, I think that the TMB would give you everything these larger scopes would in terms of performance and be easier to mount. At one point they were going for ~4K on the used market (wished I had jumped on one at that time) which is crazy given what they are. I would guess they would cost more now, but probably be in the same range as the Askars. They come up every once and a while.
JMD
