Yeah I just realised as well
The only scope I have that has a long focal length is my firstscope, my Celestron Cometron 40mm f/20. Anyway the 102 did go a little bit deeper, but not by much (i.e. for example 47 Tuc had a few more stars resolved, but not a very big difference in comparison to say my C6 and the 80ST). On M42, views were almost the same. The only difference is I could see the 5th star in the trap a little bit easier than in the 80ST. On fant fuzzies it only did slightly better than the 80ST!
Planetary views were markedly worse due to chromatic abberation (the 80ST could be pushed to about 133x and still gave nice views...by contrast the 102 could not go beyond 100x) and spherical abberation. Maybe I just got a good example of an 80ST. Weight wise was the major issue as well with this scope as it was not light enough to qualify as a grab and go for quick views with my Optex tripod. It had to be used with my EQ3 in alt-az mode. If that were the case I rather break out my C6 which is light years ahead of both those scopes in terms of seeing deep and planetary views. In the end I decided to keep my humble 80ST and part with the 102 which was just sitting there.
Hope that helps......these Synta 80ST scopes are remarkable value for their price. Just remember to get the originals (and not those cheap knock off's you get on e Bay with the plastic everything!!!)..
Darren
