Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Subatomic
I've just been doing some more research and was wondering whether the Skywatcher and Orion 80mm short tube achromatic refractors are the exact same scope, only different colour label?
I suppose most scope are more or less made by only a few companies anyway.
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That could be the case.
While I am also curious as to why the 10" doesn't meet your needs, I've seen and used 10" scopes enough to know that they aren't the easiest thing for everyone to carry, especially if you have a bad back back/arm/shoulder etc. I sometimes find even my 8" a pain to lug out the door and wish I had something simpler for chasing comets in the early morning sky.
"Ease of use" can be quite subjective - I once spoke with a family who considered an Astroscan hard to use! I had to tell them they couldn't get anything simpler...(although to be fair they can be tricky to point if you're not used to using telescopes)
Now some constructive comments on your choices mentioned in your first post (I'm not about to bag them, just point out some observations of mine):
The AZ3 mounts that I am familiar with can't point directly at the zenith unless you take them apart and put them together backwards. Perhaps that has changed in recent years but I haven't seen any recently sold ones so I don't know.
The EQ2 mount is still going to have a bit of weight to it, mainly on the counterweight. So if you are trying to avoid a weight issue I don't think this will solve it. The little Maks aren't all bad (I have an old 4" Meade SCT that got me started and showed me all sorts of things) so you would be probably be happy with that, it's jut the mount that might let you down in your quest for easiness. Setting it up south is not the issue, if you have a regular spot for observing you can mark the ground where the tripod feet should sit once you work out the best arrangement and that should make set up quite easy.
Another thing with both these set ups is that the finderscope will still be awkward to look through if you are looking at the zenith again. It's hard to get around that problem unless you get a right-angle finder of some kind. I mention this because I know some people hate leaning over their dobs to look in the finder where they are traditionally placed on the far side of the focuser.