Portable/Wide-field Scope Advice

[IanHoltham]

I would like to ask advice about buying a telescope as a second/wide field scope.

My astronomy experience so far has been going straight to a 12" LX200 and CCD. I am studying Physics at college and part of this has been a practical course in Astronomy using the SCT. I was hooked and after just a couple of hours 'I had to get me one of these'.

So, I've made the decision to get a 8/10" SCT and CCD (probably an SBIG ST7/8).

But before I do that, I would like to take sometime to learn my way around the night sky rather than just pressing the buttons on a GOTO system. So I would like to purchase a telescope that I can eventually use as a second wide field companion to the SCT. I would like to hook it up to my CCD and use it as a portable scope.

Although I now know a little about SCTs, I'm less sure about this sort of scope. What I think would be great is a 80-100mm refractor, I do know that the 'good' makes (TeleVue, Astro-Physics, Takahashi) are expensive. And I'm not sure if I need an apochromat or if an achromat will be good enough for my needs.

What I would like is that is comparable in quality to the LX200 and will not produce obviously inferior images with my CCD, hopefully without breaking the bank in the process. I target price of about UKP700 (US$1100) would be comfortable.

Thanks

Ian

[Dave Mitsky]

The Orion® Express™ 80mm Rich-Field Refractor, or a similar ED semi-apochromatic refractor sold by Williams Optics and the like, has good color correction, which will be especially important for imaging, at a reasonable price.

http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=92209&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=4&iSubCat=13&iProductID=92209

The Williams Optics ZenithStar Fluorite Doublet is more expensive but has a two speed Crayford focuser and sure looks pretty.

http://www.william-optics.com/wowebs/prod_tel/zsfd80/features0.htm

As for a mount, the more solid the better as far as imaging is concerned, but that will cut down on the portability factor somewhat. You could just piggyback the refractor on the Schmidt-Cassegrain to do imaging and get an alt-azimuth mount for visual observing.

Dave Mitsky