Quality travel and wide field small OTA?

[baggywrinkle]

I am hoping to be able to buy a quality travel and wide field OTA in February. My Chinese Spring Festival prezzy to myself as I turn 60 this year and it is my Year of the Goat.

I have been looking at two possibilities;  Altair Astro Starwave 70 ED and the Altair Astro Lightwave 60mmED triplet

Any recommendationd as to which has the best optics? Both are around 2Kg nett, the Lightwave is more expensive but it is a triplet so I suspect better optics.

I would appreciate any comments. The 70ED had a decent review in the Jan 2014 S@N mag.

I do not want to go any bigger, I have a SW ED80 and an ST120 as grab and goes, so this is really looking at a travel option.

I will put up my Samyang 100mm Catadioptic lens for sale to help fund this too.

[baggywrinkle]

Sorry that should be Samyang 800mm cat lens.

[rowan46]

the starwave has the reputation of being an ok visual scope but poor imaging scope {something to do with the blue not being focussed properly} so If you want to stick a camera on the end the lightwave is the one to go for. If it is purely visual I would take the starwave the extra 10mm apparture makes a difference

[ollypenrice]

The difference in colour correction between doublets and triplets is often trivial in visual use, especially at lower powers. Since most people want a travel scope to take to really dark sites this means they may well be concentrating on lower power non-planetary targets. You can enjoy the planets under really pretty bad skies, after all. This tends to point to a slightly larger doublet over a slightly smaller triplet but your own preferences decide it in the end.

Olly

[RobertI]

For low power, wide field views (and that is all you will be able to use if you are using a lightweight travel mount or camera tripod) any minor chromatic abberation should not be an issue in my opinion unless you have an incredibly critical eye. The Starwave 70ED looks like a very good package you get everything included and are ready to go. An alternative is the William Optics ZS71, slightly cheaper but does not come with finder, diagonal or eyepiece. I have the Megrez72 (no longer in production) which is also a doublet and I imagine gives very similar views to the ZS71 and starwave70 and I can confirm that it is superb for viewing doubles, clusters, brighter nebulae and starfields at upto 40x mag on a sturdy photo tripod.

Rob

[baggywrinkle]

Thanks for all the input folks. I will now cogitate.....

[NGC188]

For travel observing when size and weight are a big factor, I leave the telescopes at home and bring along a brace of binoculars: both Canon IS (image stabilizing) binoculars, one the excellent 10x42mm L glass pair, and the other the larger 15X50mm versions. Both give me excellent 4-5 degree TFOV and enough magnification to frame some decent views. I think you'll understand which DSO's will provide the best viewing...

If I have my truck and going to dark skies, the binoculars also travel along, but then so does my 4" TV-101NP and a vintage C8"-SCT... But on the aircraft, it's the binoculars that get the nod....good luck

[m.tweedy]

OR

http://www.modernastronomy.com/telescopesTeleskopService.htm

TS 65 Quad

[baggywrinkle]

I am going to do a natural gas hydrocarbon dew point commissioning job on the Turkish-Georgian border next month, I have a feeling that up in the mountains, where the gas metering skid is, there will be clear skies..so I want to do some widefield with my DSLR as well as take along a portable refractor.

Hence the drive for portabliltybut on a budget, sadly anything about £500 is out of the question. I have a good tripod set aside for this and I have a Nano-tacker too. I could be up on the border for 4-5 days.