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Ordered this scope on a Monday from Amazon and it arrived four days later from Adorama in perfect condition. Celestron does an excellent packing job. The user manual was easy to follow. Assembly took about 90 minutes. I was viewing that evening from my suburban townhouse patio. The views of the Moon, Mars and Saturn were very clear. Not bad for the first night!

In my opinion this is a far superior piece of equipment for half the price of an ETX 90 by Meade. I purchased one of these about two years ago. This proved to be a mistake. The Celestron is far more user friendly.

I originally bought this scope to give me something to watch the sky with while building my 14 inch scope hehe. I think it's a fantastic scope for the price if you know what your expectations are. It's a great scope for a beginner, because it's light , easy to transport and set-up which means that you'll use it often. What's the point of getting a monster scope if it'll end up sitting in the closet because it's just too painfull to have to lug it outside and set it up. With that scope you'll see all the planets and all the messier objects and it'll keep you busy for years. Don't expect to see Hubble type pictures though. All you 'll see is faint fuzzy glows. But that's the case with all small scopes.
Optics: the optics are good. Star images are clean with no major defects. Collimation is easy and the primary stays well collimated through all the abuse you can think of. You'll have to adjust the secondary often though due to the single-stalk spider. The focuser is nice and stable and the knobs are big enough to give you good control. The supplied eyepieces are ok. Not spectacular. I recommend you get the accessory kit at the same time, becuase it's discounted when you get it with the scope. It contains 5 eyepieces plus a barlow and all the planetary filters, which is a real bargain
Mount: the mount is good and very stable. The fine controls barely induce any vibration even at high magnification. The mechanism for the declination control is a little flimsy, since it consist of a screw pushing against a metal block. The setting circles are useful to get the scope pointed approximatively in the right direction, but you still have to exactly align the scope by eye with your target. Don't expect to be able to dial in the coordinates of an object and voila. The only part where you get a lot of vibrations is if you touch the focuser. That can make focusing at high magnifications a little tricky, but even the worst vibrations die down after a few seconds. The only thing I have issue with is the azimuth adjustemnt of the polar axis. The lock screw will move the axis just slightly when you tighten it, so that to get good polar alignment you have to overshoot a little to compensate for the shift caused by tightening the lock screw. Let me point out that this is a minor annoyance only and that overall this is a great mount for that price
Performance: So how good is this scope? I put it to the test in my back-yard in light polluted Los Angeles. Here's a sample: during this year's opposition (2003) I was able to easily make out the polar caps of mars and glimpse some surface feature (300x). I've split close double stars (2 arcseconds separation), and the ring nebula (M57) is definitively a ring. Stars have colors. Based on performance, this scope will keep you happy.
who is this scope for?: this scope is ideal for a beginner who isn't sure about astronomy and wants to get a scope to check out whether or not he/she would like the hobby without breaking the bank. The main problem used to be that beginners would want to get cheap scopes so as to not have a very expensive coat rack but would end up getting such low quality that their dissapointing experiences would turn them away from the hobby. This scope is definitively an exception since it has superb quality for the price.

Quality is first rate, and the German Equitorial Mount (GEM) and tripod are beefy enough to avoid irritating vibration. This scope is still small enough to fit in the corner of the room, ready to be taken outside for quick viewing, but large enough to see the rings of Saturn (and make out the Cassini Division on clear nights) and get resolution of the bands on Jupiter and track the path of its moons as their shadows march across Jupiter's orb. Saturn is a tiny jewel in the eyepiece, about 3/8" across, with the 10mm eyepiece. Jupiter is larger, about the size of a pencil eraser. But you see an amazing amount of detail on them. Lunar viewing is outstanding, with the 20mm presenting the globe of the moon filling all but the edges of the eyepiece. The 10mm gives you close up views of the craters and mara.

Everything you need is included, although like most people, you will probably buy some accessories later. The included eyepieces are good, not fantastic like [...] Naglers, but for starting out they are fine (in fact, I still use mine regularly).

Using the 10mm or 20mm eyepieces (included) for observing nebula, you can make out the gas clouds of the Orion Nebula, and split double stars, with good clarity. The 6mm eyepiece is about the most powerful you will want to use with this scope and mostly for planets, as the width of field narrows considerably. The 6mm might be included in this package; check the description. I bought it separately, as well as a 2X Barlow, but the Barlow seems to degrade the quality of the image so much that I don't recommend buying it ... investing in extra eyepieces or a different brand of Barlow might be a better idea if you want to spend the money. I also bought a motor which fits nicely on the GEM, but when the scope is properly aligned, turning one dial to keep the planet or star in the middle of the eyepiece is no trouble at all. I hardly ever use the Barlow or the motor.

For serious astro-photography, deep sky and "close up" planetary viewing, a more expensive scope is probably required, one in the 8" to 10" range. But you'll expect to pay prices starting at about [...] for that type of setup. And to set up those larger scopes, count on 20 - 45 minutes with "cool down time" and the like. And they are heavy. So if you already know you want to go larger, take a look at the Celestron G8N, an 8" reflector that runs about [...] on sale. But if you're stepping up from a department store scope with a two or three inch apeture, the Firstscope 114 EQ is a great step up. And for the beginner, it is a serious beginning scope that will let you see well into the night sky at an affordable price, without the frustrations of buying those cheap department store telescopes.

Couple it with the books "The Backyard Astronomer" and/or "Turn Left at Orion" and you'll be set to start discovering the world above.