So far I am leaning heavily towards the Orion ShortTube 400mm focal lenght 80mm lens scope. I want a relatively wide field of view. I had a look at an Orion Observer 700mm focal length 60mm lens, but as you all have stated the 60mm was not too bright and the field of view was too small for my taste. Having gone through the Orion website and also looking at one of their catalogs, it appears that all of their 80mm scopes are of the ShortTube variety. I didn`t see a single 80mm long focal lenght scope with the Orion company.

Actually I would love to get hold of a pair of binocular telescopes BUT I would have to win the lottery before I purchased something like that. LOL ;-)

I have a pair of Bushnell binoculars, 7x15x35 and I really like the view of this little gem. When I first looked through a telescope, I couldn`t believe how NARROW the field of view was compared to the binocs. I was a "virgin" to this telescope "stuff" thus my total surprise as to how narrow the field of view was throught that little 700mm/60mm Observer scope. ;-)

Ace