Since I haven't parted with a scope in quite a few years, I currently have a room bursting at the seams with my prized collection. The lineup now includes everything from little bitty to downright cumbersome. Now that I have joined the ranks of the retired, I was hoping to have a little more free time to make use of them all, since each and every one holds a place very dear to my heart. Unfortunately, a large part of my reason for retiring at this time was due to continual back problems, so until I get that issue worked out, the larger scopes will have to take a back seat to those that are a considerably more manageable. I might even have to give serious consideration to selling a few, but I'm really not in any hurry to do so at the moment. Fortunately, among my collection is a late seventies Questar Standard that I've grown to depend on almost exclusively. With my modified ETX tripod and hand-held Lion inverter, I can be setup and ready to go on pretty much a moment's notice. My personal experience is that the Questar really does provide very close to refractor-like performance without false color, with the only trade-off being a slightly thicker first diffraction ring. In addition, Questar somehow figured out how to reduce the time required to thermally stabilize the scope to that of a small refractor as well.
On another note, I also own a late-model goto version of the ETX-90, which is a rather nice scope as well. I found the plastic goto mount to be pretty much unusable, so I removed the OTA and adapted it for use with a Vixen Polaris mount. Setup in this manner, it is much more comfortable to use, although I have to say that, in my opinion, it's still no match to the convenience and optical performance of the Questar.
Bill
