Hi Al
An interesting thread, it is open to a lot of interpretation. First and foremost if, as you say, you are just starting down this road I would head on over to the Cloudy Nights site and open up their Telescope Reviews on 80-90mm refractors, also have a look at Ed Ting's site as well.
I use the following 80mm scopes, William Optics ZS-80 semi APO at f/6.0 and a SW ED80 Pro Series APO at f/7.5. The ZS-80 is my grab and go scope has nice stars to the edge but has a faint blue ring around bright stars/objects, hardly noticable but there all the same, I have used this to photograph with but disgarded the photos as the stars had distinct blue rings around them, CA, using a VR-1 filter did not help all that much, visually, yes photographicly, no. I now also have a Sky-Watcher ED80 Pro Series APO at f/7.5 and it is used as my guidescope for my Takahashi, from the limited time I have had it I have found the stars, visually are colour free and quite bright, I have not tested it photographicaly yet, but others on this site have and can comment, a range of photos are on the MyAstroShop site. Other photo's have been offered in AS&T using this scope. My aim with this scope is to use it for wide field shots, it has a slightly wider FOV than the Tak with the focal reducer but operates at f/7.5 compared to the Tak at f/5.9.
I don't know what to make of the Meade offering in this size range, I have not found any reference to it as being tested, I would also want to see an independant test and photos, not the Meade sponsered one's and I take with a grain of salt their comments on the site you provided. One would hope that it would be better than the last lot of so called APO's that were offered.
I can only comment on the 2, 80mm scopes I have, the ZS-80, while fast as far as the F/L is concerned,is not up to it in the photos department, introduces a bit of CA, the ED80 at f/7.5 is slower, appears to be able to take excellent astrophoto's.
FYI, William Optics do offer a full 80mm APO.
Have fun, it took me quite a while to get my needs sorted out.
Cheers
JohnG
