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"Ratboy99" wrote in message
...
The topic at hand, the ED-100.

The ED 100 might be a decent apo, some of them might even be well
figured, they
will likely be produced to some agreed upon spec, but who knows what
that is?

But I think a lot of weight is given to a design being an apo, without
considering other aberrations, knid of like, just because it is
essentially
color free, it is all of a sudden a perfect optic. Of course this is not
the
case.

While it is entirely possible that the scopes are going to be
manufactured to
some minimum spec (but who knows what that is, it could be 1/4 wave for
all we
know), there is also the distinct possibility (can't tell without
looking
through one) that they will suffer from some surface roughness from
being
mass-produced / machine polished.

Part of the problem is that it gets difficult to find folks that tend to
automatically identify surface roughness at the eyepiece, so as was
mentioned
elsewhere, in another thread, by another person; I would want to see for
myself
before I came away saying that just because it is an "apo" that it
represents a
good value for the money.

Are you referring to another thread where I said: "I just got Orion's
catalog #046 with the 100mm ED on the cover. And while I wouldn't exactly
call these high end refractors, they certainly MAY offer the best value
for the money out there (though just how good the 100 is remains to be
seen)...

If you are referring to this, please note that I put TWO qualifiers in
there... One, that I wouldn't call these high end refractors, and two, it
remains to be seen just how good they are... And I also capitalized the
word MAY, so as to emphasize that "best value for the money" hasn't been
proven yet...

I think a company can deliver good value without including 4" state of the
art focusers, and CNC machined tubes, for those who are looking for a fine
view without frills... Right now, Orion is looking more and more like a
potential candidate for honors in this category. Your mileage may vary...

Jan

SNIP!


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