[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by g__day

Andrews also has the 6" achro for $599 - not bad! Anyone looked though one of those?

Yes I have one. I'm quite happy with the image quality but last Saturday the focusser drove me nuts. It's always had a bit of image shift when changing direction but that night it was awful. I just couldn't get the adjustment right so that it wouldn't slop about but the moto-focus could still move it (yes the battery is new). I'll be looking into that issue very soon .

Anyway, back to the image quality. Coming from reflectors I found the colour a bit intrusive on bright objects, though I know others don't find it an issue. I now have the Baader fringekiller in the front of the diagonal all the time, except when using the UHC filter. I compared it to a 25cm GSO on Saturn the other month and it more than held its own - I know that probably says more about the reflector than it does about the refractor, but you can't have short ratio scopes without big secondaries and some loss of contrast. Of course it suffers on DSO due to the small aperture, but at least it's fairly contrasty. Probably the thing I like most about it is the ability to get good wide-field views. With my 1rpd 30mm eyepiece I get a 2 degree fov with sharp stars to near the edge.