I recently ordered the Explore Scientific AR152 and arrived today.  While unboxing, the finderscope screws fell off the plastic as it was broken.  It wasn’t really protected at is was only placed on the bottom of the box.

Aside from the finderscope screws, checked and verified if none of the glass are broken and damaged. So far so good.

The scope was big and heavy and made sure that I secured it properly, visually check for any damages and it’s good that there was no visible damage to the glass and tube of the scope.

I placed it on the mount and put the diagonal with the Explore Scientific 25mm 70 degrees 2 inches eyepiece. I was so impressed with the what I saw, then placed the 5mm Orion Stratus 2 inches eyepiece. This time I kind of struggled in focusing as astigmatism is clearly present. Inspected again the scope but everything seems to be fine and when I looked at the diagonal, it was tilted. Probably this is the reason why I’m getting this astigmatism.

This time I’m kind of frustrated as there are also some obvious dirt on the diagonal so I’ll leave it here as I need to contact the seller.

Update

I discovered another problem on the focuser. The fine focusing knob is broken. Again contacted Agena Astro and they replied to me that they have forwarded my email to Explore Scientific.

Here’s the video of the focuser problem.