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Hi Morton,
For a very many years I had a Meade 4" f/10 SCT OTA that went on a sturdy camera tripod, originally for observing solar eclipses with full aperture filter in the 80s and 90s. It was small enough to go as cabin luggage nicely on a plane and have room left for all the normal things you'd take on a holiday.
It was fine as you imply for just a quick look at something that doesn't demand a big scope, mainly sun moon and planets, and the Maks around 102-127mm are similar, though will have longer f ratios - most seem to be f/13 to f/15.
The only caveat is stay away from the Meade ETX scopes as the mounts were plastic and horrid things.
Haven't tried a vixen VMC, though for a small aperture scope they seem to have missed the point - some of the big advantages of Maks and SCT's are the closed tube design means the corrector supports the secondary (no vanes), dust stays firmly out so the mirror coatings last a long time, and next to no issues with collimation.The VMC lacks these aspects and has vanes to support the secondary.
just don't expect Questar grade optics. The Questar 3.5" scopes are in a class of their own and I can understand why people buy them.
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