ST80 v ST102 v ?

[jabberwocky]

I'm looking for a travel scope to take with me on my camping trip to southern Africa later in the year, but what to take?

What ever it is, it needs to mount to a camera tripod and be small enough to fit in hand luggage.

Obvious choice is the ST 80 but the 102 is only a small amount longer but almost twice the price but the extra aperture is surely worth it?

With such short focal lengths 400 mm and 500mm both will be wide field only.

What alternatives to these 2 are there? Budget I guess is about £180 max.

[JamesF]

I think wide field is good. Planets you can see from home, but being in South Africa should give you all sorts of new viewing opportunities for DSOs. I'd definitely go for the 102 over the 80 though. Not sure there really are many other options unless you want to go a bit mad and modify a Heritage 130 to fit on a tripod

James

[Macavity]

I think the chromatic aberration goes as some "power" (square) of objective diameter. Thus the ST120 ... ST150 are commonly held show qite a bit of false colour. The ST102 seems commonly held to be fairly "OK" though? And you can always use the aperture stop in the lens cap to give a 2" / F10 scope etc.

And plus, with the ST102 is the 2" capabilities. You can then make the ultimate use of 2" wide-field eyepieces for star sweeping etc.

[jabberwocky]

I guess I also have to think about which would be the best eyepieces to suit the st102, I have a zoom which I'll take but what about a good low power and high power?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I only had space to take my 15x70 bins to SA and Oz. I had all sorts of fun with them (sweeping the LMC and SMC with bins is awesome). Take them along if you can.

Some of the reports are here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/showpost.php?p=1626906&postcount=1

http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?t=123670

Regarding EPs, I would take low power ultra-wide angle EPs (mainly). Something like a 22 or 26 Nagler or 24 82deg Explore Scientific would be excellent. My 22mm Nagler gives awesome views (3.76 deg) in the 80mm F/6 I have, the 31mm even gives me 5.3 deg true FOV. In an F/5 a 30mm might push the exit pupil a bit, but under dark skies this is generally not a problem. If you do not want to spend that much, something like a 24mm Hyperion would also be fine.