Brent, I was actually thinking along those lines but decided to keep one in its original state for now, and use the other to make some changes (such as the flocking) and see what they do, in direct comparison. The other reason was that I have a pair of CZJ 7x50s, although I'm starting to think that the image quality of the Galileoscope with a good eyepiece is actually better than that of the binocs, which are of fairly decent quality themselves. Can't compare them directly of course because the 1.25" drawtube of the G-scope means its power bottoms out at around 11 (with a 45mm EP) or 12 (as in my case with the 40mm TVPL), and with a certain AFOV penalty.
Steve, great effort on that Newtonian! Lewis' link has some good examples. I probably wouldn't pay more than $50-60 for a used one (mine were $20 each). I understand the last batch before production ceased was priced a bit less "budgety".
Would be nice to know who made the achromat objective - whose
CA ratio (5) would be classed as
pretty good by some.