"Tom E." wrote in message
...

Seriously, if money was no factor, which would you prefer if
you could just have one scope for a year, the Tak 60 or the
Orion 80ED? ...or the new Celestron 80ED (but the reviews
aren't out yet).

FWIW, IMO, unless you have a specific requirement for a small aperture high
power scope, the far less expensive Celestron C102 F5 achromats (same size
as the ED80, _and_ more aperture) are quite acceptable for touring a dark
sky. The additional costs of an apo, get you color free planets, and better
wide-field astro-images, but if you aren't going to use the scope
specifically for those purposes, you can save yourself some money.

At the very least, if you've never owned a small, fast refractor, it might
be a good idea to start with an ST80... they're cheap enough. Used on
Astromart they often sell for under $175 _with_ the EQ-1 mount. I bought
mine new for $199, from old stock at a local shop a few years ago.

Later, given the choice between an apo and more aperture, I chose more
aperture and moved up to the 100mm F5 achromat. I wanted more light, not
better color correction. I use the scope primarily for quick looks at the
larger open clusters and Milky Way starfields at low power (20x, 3 degrees,
5mm exit pupil), and DSO's where an upper bound of 2mm to 1.4mm exit pupil
(50x to 70x) is preferable. It isn't until you get into planets that exit
pupils smaller than 1mm (100x and above) beg for apo performance.

Stephen Paul