Re: The Casual Telescope

>And as long as you stick to the stock
>eyepieces, typically 10mm and 25mm, you cannot get both the Pleiades
>and decent planetary views with the same scope.  That is a real
>problem with the ETX-70.

My experience with the ETX-70 was that even with good quality eyepieces I could
not get decent planetary views.  I do not consider the ETX-70 as a reasonable
option.

>You can easily afford to buy a good Barlow for the difference in
>price between an ETX-90 and an ETX-70 or an ST-80, but not all
>casual observers will.  And even with a Barlow, those small
>refractors cannot compete with the ETX-90 at high power.

Limiting my comments to the ST-80, my experience is that in comparison to the
ETX-90  they are easier to use and navigate with.  Focusing the ETX-90 can be a
problem, the focuser knob is some difficult to access.  At 100X an ST-80 will
show a ring around Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and some cloud belts.  An
experienced observer can get more out of an ETX on the planets but I am not
sure that an casual observer will.

For a casual do anything scope, I think a good case can be made for the ST-80
type scope because it does the things a small scope should at night, widefield
views and some planetary views and it is decent for day time use as well.

Thats a casual scope for a casual observer.

jon