In any event, what's the best $100 that YOU ever spent on this hobby?

And why?

I think I have spent several "best" one hundred dollars.

The first was probably the Cometron Jr 125mm ST Newtonian I purchased at a
garage sale for $40. It refueled my excitement interest after it had lapsed
with my C-8.

The last best "$100" was the $80 I spent on a used Orion SpaceProbe 130ST OTA
fitted with a 2 inch focuser.

This is the final solution to the search begun with Cometron Jr - the ultimate,
inexpensive, small Newtonian that does it all.

The Cometron really turned me on to compact Newtonians but it was dead at 100x.
I have gone through several scopes searching for a replacement, a C-5 OTA is
the most noteable.

With the 2 inch focuser and a 130mm aperture at F5, the SpaceProbe will
provide a reasonably well corrected 3+ degree FOV at 20X with a 6.4 mm exit
pupil, ideal for scanning the Milky Way from a dark site.

At the other end, it does a nice job with double stars and planets because the
parabolic mirror plus a solid collimation cell really are quite sharp. And
that 5 inch mirror does not take long at all to cool.

Its a keeper....

jon