127 mak or 120 refractor?

[Jon Sales]

I've narrowed my choice of score down to either a 127 Skywatcher mak or a 120mm refractor.

I want something with goto do what other choices do I have in a £400 price range?

[John]

I guess your other option would be a 130mm newtonian which can be had on a GOTO mount for less than £400. If the 120mm refractor is one of the short tubes I'd prefer the 127mm Mak or the 130 newtonian as both are more versatile scopes - the short tube refractors produce too much chromatic abberation to be much use for high magnification planetary / lunar viewing.

It's a shame that the GOTO requirements eats so much of your budget up - £400 would get you into 8" - 10" dobsonain territory which would out perform the GOTO scopes above by a large margin.

[Jon Sales]

Thanks John.

Need something travel worthy tho as we spend a lot of time abroad do scope will have to come with us, mount in cargo hold and OTA as hand luggage.

[RikM]

If you are going to be flying with it, then the 127 Mak is probably the best choice.

[username]

Hi Jon,

I'm a newb at buying telescopes myself so not sure how good my advice is but I'll give it anyway

My situation seems to be pretty much the same as yours ie need stuff to fit on a plane although I'm not needing goto. The solution I came up with is a mak plus a short tube refractor.

I've ordered my mak (mine is 102mm) but not the refractor as I'll be concentraing on solar system and lunar over the summer. Have you considered going for a 102mm mak and a short tube refractor for wider fields. As you need to get on a plane the skymax 102 tube is 1.9kg and a short tube refractor maybe an skytravel 80 or skytravel 102 won't add much to the weight. 3 well chosen eyepieces could be shared between the tubes.

For the mount I've seen the celestron lcm goto mount being sold seperately. This has a published weight limit of 3 kilos and appears (although I haven't seen one in the flesh so to speak) a lot less bulkier than the skywatcher az goto mount and maybe more suited to putting in the hold luggage

By choosing a smaller mak and a short tube refractor you can have the best of both worlds with field of view and the celestron lcm mount appears to be smaller for travel. I'm going for a similar set up but using an eq2 mount when at home and an az3 mount when travelling.

[newman]

I own a 120mm refractor, f/8.3, but I suspect you want a short tube one. I wouldn't call mine very practical for frequent flying - especially with the mount and everything.

[Jon Sales]

Thanks guys.

I'll have to check out that mount Jim

[RikM]

I bought an ST80 to use a travel scope. It sits quite nicely on a Manfrotto camera tripod, but then I am not really interested in lunar / planetary observing.

[username]

I meant startravel, not skytravel for the short tubes! so like the st80 Rik mentioned