Sky-Watcher · Dobsonian · 10 inches and up
The 12-inch Flextube GoTo, the Flextube 300P SynScan in the US, is where Sky-Watcher's collapsible design earns its keep. A 305 mm mirror at f/4.9 needs a 1,500 mm focal length, and the three-pole tube shortens from 55 inches to 36 for the trip. With that aperture, galaxies show structure and globular clusters resolve into stars under dark skies, and the SynScan AZ GoTo with Wi-Fi does the finding. It's heavy, though. The tube weighs 46.2 lb and the base 53 lb, nearly 100 lb in all, so it's a two-person job or a set of wheels. Freedom Find encoders let you push it by hand without losing alignment. Buy it with the controller, cable and power supply, and plan the pickup.
The full kit
Check the listing photos against this list, and ask the seller about anything you can’t see. Plenty of listings are the tube alone or the mount alone, and a missing hand controller, power supply or counterweight should come off the price.
The weight makes transport damage the main risk, so most are better collected. Hand controllers, cables and power supplies go missing. The motors and encoders need testing, and the mirror coating dulls with age.
New to used telescopes? How to check a used telescope covers optics, mounts, power and shipping, and what a complete kit looks like helps with tube-only and mount-only listings.
We haven’t been through this model’s listings yet. Search eBay and run every listing through the checklist above. Ask for a photo looking into the optics with a flashlight and one of everything included, and pass on any seller who won’t send them.
Search “Sky-Watcher Flextube 300P” on eBay ↗eBay searchSky-Watcher
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