New Telescope from Apogee!

[Xevious]

At a recent stop at Apogee Inc.'s website, I found a new telescope they are now offering for sale which is geared for the intermediate / advanced amature, but is well within the beginners budget.

It is called the Widestar 80, and features an 80mm wide-field Refractor telescope with an short focal of 400mm, an equatorial tripod, reflex finder, erect-image prism, and a 25mm eyepiece. It is currently going for only $120 each, compared to Orion's Shortube 80 OTA, which is well over $200.

This telescope will not offer as much lightgrasp as the Sciforums users current beginners scope of choice, the Spaceprobe 130. As such it probably will not deliver a bright, spectacular image to deep sky enthusists. However, for planetary study and wide-field deep sky sweeping, it ought to be a star performer considering that refractors inherrantly have sharper images than reflectors.

I don't have one in my hands to look over, but Apogee is reputed as a very good source of telescope parts and equipment. You guys might want to consider this telescope. Even if you already have a nice deep-sky reflector in your hands, this would be a great complementary telescope for lunar and planetary work.

Apogee's Telescope Catalog Online
http://www.apogeeinc.com/scopes.html

[cjmowery]

Originally posted by Xevious
At a recent stop at Apogee Inc.'s website, I found a new telescope they are now offering for sale which is geared for the intermediate / advanced amature, but is well within the beginners budget.

It is called the Widestar 80, and features an 80mm wide-field Refractor telescope with an short focal of 400mm, an equatorial tripod, reflex finder, erect-image prism, and a 25mm eyepiece. It is currently going for only $120 each, compared to Orion's Shortube 80 OTA, which is well over $200.

This telescope will not offer as much lightgrasp as the Sciforums users current beginners scope of choice, the Spaceprobe 130. As such it probably will not deliver a bright, spectacular image to deep sky enthusists. However, for planetary study and wide-field deep sky sweeping, it ought to be a star performer considering that refractors inherrantly have sharper images than reflectors.

I don't have one in my hands to look over, but Apogee is reputed as a very good source of telescope parts and equipment. You guys might want to consider this telescope. Even if you already have a nice deep-sky reflector in your hands, this would be a great complementary telescope for lunar and planetary work.

Apogee's Telescope Catalog Online
http://www.apogeeinc.com/scopes.html

I own a Celestron 80mm 400/f5 scope, its made by the same manufacturer as the Orion Shortube 80 (Might be Synta?? not sure). Only difference is it is colored blue instead of white. I wonder if this Apogee is an original design or another copy cat. For $120, that is a hell of a deal. Great scope for those "grab and go" nights. These f/5 scopes are awesome for looking at open star clusters and astrophotography.

Cheers

[Xevious]

Those Orion and Celestrons are most likely Synta imports. This one quite possibly is as well - the telescope is the right focal length and has the same reflex finder that Orion and Celestron carries.

If Apogee can offer the same scope as Orion and Celestron for only 50% of the price, it really makes you wonder just how inflated the price of telescope are.

[Notimetogaze]

Most of Apogee scopes are copy cats. The guy who started the Company (Sheldon) worked at Meade Telescopes for I believe 20 some years, his son Sheldon joined him. They have copied several, and not with always with the best quality or price.