A portable, Grab and Go telescope

[pluton]

Hello,

 I am looking for a small-medium size telescope for genarl observations, planets.moon. DSO..and I like know your opinion. I am seraching a goos scope,portable, grab-and go , I think that a ETX125, or Nexstar SCT 6" ,maybe a refractor 120mm achromatic..

Thank s in advance for your opinion...

Best

Fran

[tahoetomahawk]

I had a 120mm Orion SkyviewPro and wanted a much smaller scope that I could also use for photagraphy, and I went with the WO GTF81. It's very small and light.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

SCTs are very light for their aperture. I have had my C8 for years, and it does very well on all targets except the very widest of wide-field targets. For those (half dozen or so) objects I prefer binoculars or a short refractor. An achromatic refractor at 120mm will be either a lot heavier and bulkier, or suffer severely in terms of chromatic aberration on planets. An F/5 120mm achromat is very nice as a wide-field DSO scope, but on planets both maks and SCTs outperform it. Slower achromats perform a lot better, but they are not easy grab and go scopes.

My 80mm APM apo is much more portable, but I find I usually take out the C8, as it is nice and compact, and not that much heavier than the 80mm APM.

[rowan46]

if you don't have to carry it too far the nexstar 6 is I think the best option. Sct's are not the best scopes for anything but they are pretty good generalists and where they do excel is in packing the most aparture into the smallest space

[Alkaid]

If you must have electronics like GOTO, then Nexstar. If you are happy with casual manual observing, perhaps a nice refractor on an AZ4.

[A McEwan]

What sort of budget are we looking at here?

Ant