Televue Pronto vs. Stellarvue SV78S

Hello,

This is my first time posting a messege on this forum. I am looking for a nice refractor to put ontop of my 8" LX200GPS. I am in need of a scope that can give nice wide field views, and can also act as a premium telephoto lens and a guidescope for when I shoot through the LX200. I have my Superwedge and everything else to go for astrohphography except the guidescope. I have got good results with short 3 or 4 minute exposures of deep space objects, but that puts a large deficit on what I can photograph until I get a seperate guidescope. Seeing as I am only 17, I dont have $2000 to spend on a Televue 85 (which would probably be optimal for my purposes). I can only spend around 600 to 700 dollars.

This brings me to my question. I am looking for opinions on either the Televue Pronto or the StellarVue SV78S. They are close in aperture, but the Stellarvue beats the Televue on focal length. I am a little torn between the two. I dont know if maybe its an even better idea to save up a little more for a TV-76 used. Does anyone have an opinion on this? I need to decide pretty soon because summer is approaching and I would like to get out and take some astrophotos while the weather is nice (and while I'm not overrun by school work), so any opinions or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know that some opinions on this will be biased towards the Televue seeing as this is the Televue forum, but sill, opinions of pros and cons of these scope would be greatly appreciated.

Clear Skies,
Taylor

Either one is a good scope for your purposes. The Televue should have less color, and about 30% less lightgathering power. But, given your uses, I would go with the Ranger, which is substantially lighter than the Pronto and cheaper. I don't think that you need the extra apeture for guiding.

Taylor
I have an LX-200 10" (original style) and have installed a Takahashi FS-60C in a similar application as yours. It has worked out great for both visual and for wider field video photography for me.

The main advantage for piggy back mounting is that it is smaller and lighter than the other scopes mentioned. Being an APO - it thinks it's a larger scope (70mm +), has little or no color, takes power very well, and comes as a wide field (F5.9 355mm fl) scope.

I was able to purchase mine on AstroMart for $600, so it was cost comparable as well.

Just adding an another option.
Steven Jindra