I have had my eye on an Astro Tech
AT111EDT triplet refractor for a while and have recently come across the Explore Scientific
ES102 triplet.
The explore scientific is on special for $1000 USD (usually $1399) and comes with rings, finder, diagonal etc.
The astro tech is $1595 USD + $100 for rings. It also has a pretty robust rotatable imaging focuser.
In either case I will want a field flattener too for imaging. Something like AT2FF for $150.
The main differences seem (to my very amateur knowledge) to be:
Aperture 111 vs 102
Glass, ohara vs hoya (not sure how different they are)
What do you think?
