SW Evostar 80ED or Williams Star 71

[Snaxmuppet]

Getting down to the nitty-gritty stage now of what my first AP scope will be and I had come to the conclusion that the SW Evostar 80ED DS-Pro was a good starter scope for AP and that was going to be what I got but after spending a couple of hours with Barry-Wilson (thx Barry) I am now thinking of changing my mind to the Williams Optics Star 71.

Clearly the Williams is going to be the better scope. It is f4.9 vs f7.5 and it has a flat field where as I would need a field flattener with the 80ED. It also has a better/more robust focuser if I understand it correctly. Also, needing the flattener/reducer means that the price of the 80ED goes up by about £160 making the two much closer in price... from FLO the Williams OTA is £789 and the 80ED + flattener/reducer (to f6.37) is £508 - an extra £281

Should I stretch the budget for my first AP scope and go for the Williams Optics Star 71 or stick to my first thoughts and get the SW Evostar 80ED DS-Pro? Other thoughts are that I could probably get a good s/h 80ED and resell it quite easily whereas I would have more trouble finding a s/h Williams and it might be more difficult to sell on.

I was thinking of getting a secondhand Atik 314 or even a 414 to go with this but that is also open at the moment as I haven't looked yet at compatibility of the scopes and the CCDs.

[MattJenko]

I have the ed80 but out of the two I would get the Star 71, for the reasons you give. I will buy it off you if you sell it