Thanks Chris,
The 90x900 sounds nice! That might just be within my price range too. Though I must say, I've been pretty taken by the Maksutov-Cassegrain spotting scope idea. Compact, light, and good value..
Would a 90mm aperture, 1200mm focal length spotting scope like
http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-5226...8756877&sr=8-1
be equivalent to the 90mm, 900mm focal length of the skywatcher, but with even more zoom? Sorry for being a bit naive about it all... Also I'm just starting to understand eyepieces; the celestron has a 32mm eyepiece, giving a 37.5x magnification. The skywatcher comes with an S10 and an S25 - giving 90x and 45x magnification, respectively.. If I put a 10mm on the celestron, I would get 120x magnification? But I lose my field of view..?
Also, I assume the 90mm refractor would give me more clarity than the 90mm Maksutov, due to it having fewer mirrors... But then I can't take it with me hiking as easily..