fantasizing on buying one. Haha. When I have a job this is the first one i'll buy. Or the second (camera first?). Or the third (binocs second!). ahhh I dunno.

the main reason is for astrophotography. For traveling (and for beginner/star party purposes, I already have a scope in mind - an astroscan. Portable and cute. For astrophotography:

Astropix.com says:

"Refractors provide high contrast views and are excellent for lunar and planetary work, and all types of deep-sky astrophotography.

High-quality refractors are more expensive per inch of aperture than Newtonians or catadioptric telescopes. Their maximum size is limited because of price considerations as well as difficulty in design and obtaining the exotic glass necessary for optimum color correction. Because of this limitation on aperture size in amateur refractors, they can't see or record objects as faint as can be detected with a telescope with a larger objective. For astrophotography however a refractor in the 4 to 6 inch size can record remarkably faint objects. Also, the stellar resolution of a good refractor in this size range, around one arc second, matches up very well with the resolution allowed by atmospheric seeing, especially on long-exposure deep-sky images. "

So main drawback is price, but since other than skyscapes with landscapes, I want to capture deep-sky images, it seems like refractors are the way to go.

"Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes are usually around f/10 which is relatively slow for deep-sky astrophotography. They are compact and portable for their aperture size and are reasonably priced because they are popular and mass-produced.

Good pictures can be taken with SCTs, but they require a lot of work and patience. The vast majority of SCTs sold these days are sold with computerized Go To altazimuth mounts that limit exposures to about 30 seconds before field rotation becomes a problem. To use an altazimuth mounted Go To SCT for long-exposure astrophotography, you will need a wedge." -> clicking on that link gives me page not found.

"Newtonians - For astrophotography, they must be off-axis guided. Depending on the focal ratio, they may require coma correctors for photography. The biggest problem with attaching a camera to a newtonian telescope that is made for visual use, is that they usually don't have enough "back focus". This means that you cannot rack the focuser out enough to get the camera to come to focus. The typical solution to this problem is to move the mirror up in the tube."

"Astrophotography can get to be as expensive a hobby as you want to make it. Some people spend, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars on prime real estate in Arizona and New Mexico and build completely automated remote observatories and then stay in the comfort of their homes and download images over the internet. For those with the resources to do it, the sky is the limit on how much you can spend." Shet sana umabot ako sa ganung lebel, sky's the limit! hahaha.

Ay shet ang mamahal ng suggested scopes for astrophotog by that site. Cheapest is 379$ f/6. Hmm ok naman na siguro hahaha. 

"Most experienced astrophotographers find that a good 4 or 5 inch apochromatic refractor is an excellent choice for deep-sky astrophotography because of its versatility. Such a scope can keep you busy for a long time and last a lifetime."

Ok dedz. The cheapest 4-inch mentioned on the site costs 995$, that's almost 43k. actually, reasonable naman siya ano? parang price lang ng laptop. Can't wait to get a high paying job (sige mangarap sige). At wala pang mga mount yan i think. AT ANG MAHAL NG MOUNTS SHET. Cheapest recommended one is 850$. I die.

This Orion 8" Newtonian Looks good! Strong and powerful plus keri na siguro for a first sweldo (or christmas bonus hahaha). I also want a Ritchey-Chretien! Even if I don't understand how it works (or even how to pronounce it). It just sounds good on paper, haha. More expensive though. Hubble is a Ritchey-Chretien btw.

Another site (forgot the one, sorry) said that refractors are better in light-polluted cities, since they will gather less light pollution (or something like that). So kelangan ko talaga ng refractors ganun? haha. This one looks like a good refractor. Expensive pero yan na yung pinakamura in its range I think. That can be my astrophotography scope.

Ang ultimate dream ko talaga someday for this astronomy hobby of mine is an observatory. Wait, gagawa pala muna ng national astro organization (na magiging known internationally) tapos they'll have this observatory as a tambayan/ whatever tapos may star party every week. hahaha kung mangangarap din lang naman ano. This is when the PAGASA observatory actually uses its observatory (or the largest scope in the Philippines, ganyan). Tapos I'll have this observatory sa province (cebu?? aurora??) haha so people will appreciate astronomy more. C'mon the Philippines is blessed with awesome land, sea, and SKY. Sinisira lang natin lahat with land, air, water, light pollution. :( So sad.

For astrophotography naman, an analemma!! total patience. Doable in the philippines with its erratic weather? I hope so.