This came my way on the cheap. I used to own a nice R150S, and I hoped its little sister was just as well-made.
It is! The weak link on these scopes was the sled focuser. The gear mechanism is part plastic and just stripped over time. My R150S's focuser was still workable, but this R130S's was not. I suspect given the condition of the rest of the telescope that the gear was stripped very early and the telescope sat on a shelf unused. The rest of the telescope is almost like new.
The solution for me was a Vixen 36.4mm-to-T-thread adapter and a Baader T-thread-to-1.25" adapter and helical focuser. Almost all of my eyepieces are Pentax or Vixen and nearly parfocal. The Baader unit has about 5mm of movement, more than enough to satisfy all of them if I lock the sled in the right place. (This solution was suggested by Eddgie in a prior thread here on CN; it is working for me.)
The scope was out of collimation, but only the primary needed adjusting, and a collimation eyepiece was sufficient.
I had it out last night (on my rejuvenated Vixen SP). Views are all I could ask for from a 130mm Newt. With a Pentax 20mm XW and 10m XW, the big clusters in Auriga were super sharp. With a 2.5mm Vixen eyepiece for 288x, Castor was superb---two dots with a dim ring around each, just as expected. Jupiter was nice, too, with lots of detail, and I could easily tell Europa from Ganymede by size and color, something I did not expect with a 5" scope.
The scope is extremely well-built. My R150S never lost collimation, and I suspect the R130S will keep it well. Everything (but the sled gear) is aluminum and stainless steel. It's no wonder the telescope looks new; it's built to last.
My SP's tripod was designed for a long refractor, so sometimes I had a hard time looking into the eyepiece, which sat at about 175cm. I think if I use this scope a lot on that mount, I will want to pick up an older Vixen tripod with shorter legs.
Best,
Val
