Hi Jaq
I've travelled to a lot of solar eclipses with small to medium scopes.
For the vast majority of my solar eclipse trips, my self imposed luggage limits have been
1 checked bag <22.5kg + hand luggage
must be able to carry everything on my own.
A couple of times I've had 16kg and 20kg limits applied to domestic flights and some of these going to short airstrips in remote places on smaller STAL aircraft meant I couldn't just pay excess baggage. It was a hard limit.
In the days of film, I carried an ED80 (3.5kg, 80mm f7.5, 600mm
FL) + mount. When I switched to an APSC
DSLR I moved to a William Optic M70(2.5kg, 70mm f6.3, 430mm
FL) + mount.
At the last eclipse, I used a Polarie and a 300mm f4 lens.
The ED80 is still available at a range of prices. if you pay a bit more you can buy faster models. The M70 has been replaced by the William Optic Star 71 which is apparently a very good imager.
Both of the
OTA's are reasonably priced
You made a couple of statements :
"I am going to Scotland so expect clear sky's."
What are you smokin? Whatever it is, I'll have what he's havin'!
"I might do some imagining"
Well - for this you don't need an
OTA
Finally, if your intention is imaging then yes the fast refractor is probably the way to go. However, fast small refractors are not much good for observing deep sky or planets. You really need
aperture, which gives you light gathering power for
DSO's and resolution for planets. There are some very clever very portable suitcase
dob designs around that might be ideal for this.
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978
...................Web site : http://joe-cali.com/
Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80.
Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's.
Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12
Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec.
Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari
Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)