Orion 120ST advice

I'm considering buying an Orion 120ST as a rich field, grab and go scope. I was wondering if anyone out there owns one, or has experience with one. I would like to know how it handles magnification. I was looking in their catalog, and in one place they say that it's highest theoretical magnification is 203x, and in another place it says 283x. Would it handle anywhere near that without image breakdown? If you have any experience with this scope, please drop me a line and let me know.
Thanks guys,
Mike

I own one and in my opinion it does not handle anything over 120X...but even at that it shows a great deal of detail on the moon and even the planets during good seeing.

A great wide field scope. I love mine so much that i almsot never take out my 8" Meade LX50 SCT. Not that my SCT doesn't provide great views, because it does...but the 120ST is just so easy to setup for quick looks and that's about all I have time for.

Even when I have time, I still like to use the 120ST.

Check out my review of it at Cloudy Nights...
http://www.cloudynights.com/reviews3/Astroview120.htm

Since my review, I have upgraded the tripod (a solid oak tripod has completely eliminated ALL vibrations) and I've added a 2" diagonal and a 9 X 50 RA/CI finderscope. The additional weight on the EP end of the scope has helped with balancing the OTA farther forward on the mount.

I saw the most incredible view of M42 that I've ever seen. Could have been a combination of a great night of seeing (of which there are few in northcentral Wisconsin)...But I had never seen that through my SCT. I love this little scope.

Orion's customer service is excellent. I know of one person who got a 120ST and there were some paint flecks on the lens. Orion sent him another 120ST (after a thorough inspection) without even asking for the original back first. They also sent an RMA with a paid shipping label for the return.

I do believe you get a 30 day money back guarantee with Orion. So you could try it to see if you like it.

If you use it as purely rich-field scope, I think you'll enjoy it.

I have the 100/F6 and am very happy with the rich-field performance. I did turn it on Jupiter for grins and got a pretty serious purple haze.

steve

>>I'm considering buying an Orion 120ST as a rich field, grab and go scope <<

I ordered the OTA only, and fortunately had some 115mm rings and dovetail to mount it with. I can't speak for the mount Orion offers with it. I use a heavy duty Samson Tripod with a good vertical lift. This really is a grab and go setup. I keep it all setup in my den with the ep. installed, and grab it and go when the seeing looks good. Since this is alt-az, I also bought a pnumatic (sp?) stool that adjust in height. This is actually fairly important since it is so easy scanning the sky with this setup, and being able to quickly adjust the hieght is really needed. I am thinking of getting the Williams 45 degree Amici diagonal to match the views in my charts and binoculars. I also stole the rightside up finder from my ST80 which makes star hopping much easier.

I tried this OTA at ~100 power and really felt like the scope was working hard. Although the moon will still hold up at these powers. It really likes about 24-60x.

Orion now ships this scope with much better packaging, so the delicate collimation should stay tight. I have dark skies and really enjoy my ST120. However, if you are a city dweller, then the wide fields might not help you as much, as the sky glow will be fairly bright.

David Simons