"Ratboy99" wrote in message
...
Orion 80ED and perhaps the small
Stellarvue refractors may be to blame.

Maybe its because the TV 76 kicks their ass.

Or, yeah, maybe when the Orion 100 gets here, TV, TMB and AP will have to
drop
their 4"er line. Ha Ha ha!

Certainly not at F9. If they can get it down to F6, with 2" crayford, for
under $1k, and also perform well at 200x, then they'll have something at
least to consider.

The main reason I know of to get an ED refractor, is to have both wide
fields, and high power out of the same scope. For wide fields of view, the
achromat 102mm F5's and F6's are good enough for us lowly amateurs. If they
can't get it down to near 600mm, then it seems like a waste of effort. At
near 900mm, I'd rather have a DGM Optics OA4, or a similar performing
standard newt on Dob mount with no color whatsoever at any power.

I find it amusing that you mention the name Tasco, and everyone groans, but
you mention Synta, and nobody flinches. The only Tasco I ever owned, came
from Synta. Go figure. Synta builds okay stuff, but not great. Heck, I have
one of the ST102's now, and I'm struggling to _not_ by a William Optics 2"
crayford for it. Optically it does what an F5 achromat does well. Low power,
wide field, but focusing the damn thing should be effortless. What's
stopping me is that the WO crayford cost as much as I paid for the scope.
Not that that makes the WO focuser too expensive.. g

Stephen Paul
Shirley, MA