Orion 80mm ED Apochromatic Refractor Stock #9895 $429 Focal length 600mm f/7.5 2" Crayford focuser & 1.25" adapter. 5.7 lbs. It arrived Friday, so the initial stated backorder date on-line of 2 months was completely inaccurate. Only about a week and a half. Despite stubborn high cirrus, this thing impressed me. Mars held up well all the way to 188x, using a 9mm UO ortho & 2.8x Klee Barlow. I tried using a 2" Barlow, but couldn't coax it into balance. Orion needs to move the tripod mounting block about 3" closer to the focuser in order to make balance easier. Right now it's positioned for no added weight at the focuser end at all, and a fully racked-in focuser. Small scopes are traditionally hard to keep balanced anyway, due to the accessories being a larger percentage of total weight than with big scopes, and the poorly positioned tripod block doesn't help. I got by with the old standard, velcro-strap ankle weights around the top end of the tube. The astronomer's equivalent of bailing wire and chewing gum. Even the best doublet refractors will show a bright colored rim, or a thicker haze at high powers on Mars, yet the residual color with this telescope was so minimal, unobtrusive, that it wasn't consciously noticed unless looking for it. Through the sucker holes, the polar cap and dark albedo features were clearly seen. The limb was sharp & crisp, the planet in crystal clear focus. Alberio showed a beautiful blue and gold pair, and I didn't even notice a color fringe at 50x. Too tired to stay up for the last-quarter moon, gotta work tomorrow. While it will really take a cloudless night to fully appreciate this scope, for now I can say that I'm pleased with my purchase. This is definitely the highest-quality refractor I've ever owned. The more I look at it, though, the less I'd recommend it as a travel scope. The barrel and cell are oversized; would easily accommodate a 100mm objective (maybe things to come???), this is the most massive 80mm scope I've ever used, length aside. There must be more compact, premium 80mm class scopes that would travel much better. Another nit to pick is that while the Crayford style focuser is very smooth, the lock/drag knob hasn't sufficient force to completely immobilize the drawtube under a heavy load such as a camera body and guider, or wide-angle 2" eyepiece & diagonal, but maybe I can improve on this a tad. Also my usual gripe about the Vixen finderscope dovetail system, which, unlike the Meade system, slides-in from the "bottom" end, so a loose setscrew means your finder falls off. This scope comes with no accessories or eyepieces at all, so it's necessary to buy a finderscope or red-dot sight, star diagonal (2" recommended by me) and eyepieces of course, if you don't already have them. What was included was a copy of TheSky which my computer doesn't seem to want to install completely. I used the Weightless mount for this test, which has been waiting for this refractor now that I have mounted it on there and used it. But the mass of this scope made itself apparent in a real way; the friction on the altitude bearings was insufficient. Way too slippery. The older scope, a 70mm f/10, weighs perhaps half of what this one does, and so of course the "feel" is different. Might have to install a drag or lock-knob. This BLOWS AWAY my 80mm f/5 doublet, visually, also sold by Orion about 10 years ago. Photographic tests will be fun and interesting, but alas, unless a big comet suddenly appears, will have to wait. Anyway, for a lousy night, I got a few grins at the eyepiece. This is one nifty refractor, sharp as a tack and almost as free of spurios color as possible. The price just makes it more sweet. C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com