----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Santangeli" <psantangeli@No-Spam>
> In general, if I had to do it all again, for the purposes of
astrophotography, I wouldn't buy a new scope off either of these companies.
I'd buy a great third party mount (G11/Gemini, AP, etc - there are now many
great mounts on the market), and buy a smaller faster OTA to start, *maybe*
some day buying a used SCT OTA (C8 probably). SCT's are not great beginner
CCD OTA's. They require a lot of accuracy in tracking and guiding, have big
focus shift problems, and tend to have very small fields with the average
beginner to intermediate chips.
>
> Just and opinion of course (from the school of hard-knocks).
>
Exactly my feelings too, Pete. I keep trying to steer newcomers away from
that big SCT for imaging, instead trying to get them to consider a
refractor of short focal length and a good mount. You identified the
challenges really well.
rdc