On 8/15/11, Craig Smith <cs2560@gmail.com> wrote:
(Although I'm not familiar with the "weightless" mount.)
A bit of shameless self-promotion. One of my Sky and Telescope articles. October 2000 issue, page 138 Telescope Techniques "A Weightless Woodshop Refractor" by Chuck Hards The third article in my "Woodshop" series for the magazine, stressing the use of common tools with both old materials and new. It's a Dobsonian mount variation for refractors and Cassegrains. BTW, the Orion scopes are not overly cumbersome. There are smaller scopes more suitable for airline travel, however. The 80mm uses the same tube OD, cell castings, and focuser as the 100mm unit, which makes it seem overly large, but that's part of what allows the low price. Some years ago we did side-by-side comparisons with a TeleVue scope and found that the Orion was, subjectively, about as well-corrected visually as the TV.