Price Difference Between Skywatcher Evostar

[gordyb]

102 and Evostar 90,both on EQ3-2 mounts.A 4 inch will give you a limiting magnitude of around 12.7.Is the price difference of £81 worth it to to buy the more expensive 102.Thanks

[John]

102 and Evostar 90,both on EQ3-2 mounts.A 4 inch will give you a limiting magnitude of around 12.7.Is the price difference of £81 worth it to to buy the more expensive 102.Thanks

Extra aperture is always worth having and, in my opinion, a 4" is scope is the minimum that I like to use, especially if it's your only scope.

I can't begine to quantify that in terms of whether it's worth £81 of course - that's a personal decision

There might be better "bang for your buck" buys of course, eg: a 6" dobsonian.

[Ben Ritchie]

I agree with John, especially if it's your only 'scope, but there's a lot of value in a small, light 'scope too - my 76mm gets a lot of use, because it can be up and running inside 30s.

Forget limiting magnitude, it's almost meaningless in real conditions.

[gordyb]

John i notice you have a 102mm ED refractor how much better optically are these lets say compared to the evostar series.Thanks

[ollypenrice]

I'd pay the extra, and the extra again to have the ED, to be honest. I know that's easy to say but another issue is resale. The achromats go incredibly cheaply secondhand. Even the big ones fetch peanuts. (I have one!)

Olly

[John]

John i notice you have a 102mm ED refractor how much better optically are these lets say compared to the evostar series.Thanks

Mine's a Vixen ED102SS and not in production any more I'm afraid. It's a great scope, really well corrected for chromatic abberation for it's focal ratio (F/6.5) and very portable. An Evostar F/9.8 102mm will show more CA but it won't be too objectionable.

Pricewise ED 4" scopes cost around 3x as much as the Evostar equivilent.