Portable cheap scope - The quest continues

[Rigel-7]

Portable, cheap and useful. Seems a set of simple requirements but for the moment I am still baffled. What I am looking for is 90mm refractor at about f7-8 at the £150 mark less than 750mm long. I'm not fussy.

Currently I am considering the following:

Skymax 90 on eq1 - great planetary scope

Evostar 90 on az3 - good planetary scope but at F10 too long

Mercury 705 on az3 - aperture too small but good size

Evostar range - too fast

Heritage 130 - not suitable.

Please help.....

[ollypenrice]

Erm, probably impossible! I can't think of anything. Just maybe you might find something in the world of spotter scopes?

Olly

[Rigel-7]

Not impossible - Celestron 90lcm without the goto would be spot on...

[John]

Not impossible - Celestron 90lcm without the goto would be spot on...

Thats the only 90mm F/7-ish refractor around at the moment I think.

Would 80mm F/7.5 be any good ?:

Opticstar AR80 refractor telescope.

[Rigel-7]

Thanks John looks nice. Would this make a better all round scope than the ones above ?

[g0ibi]

What about the Starwave 80 ED from Altair Astro?

I've had mine a couple of month's and am well impressed!

[John]

The Starwave 80 is over £300 - the OP's limit was half that.

On the Opticstar AR80, I've never owned one so I can't comment on how it would compare. It was the only thing I found that came close to your criteria though. On planets / lunar the 90mm scopes would probably be at least as good. On deep sky objects the Heritage 130 would trump all the others.

As Olly said, it's hard to find something that ticks all your boxes.