Re: Refractor:Spotting Scope

["Rich"]

You can take good photos with a lowly 80mm Shortube achromat.
You don't need ED or apochromatism for that.  Powers below 60x,
they will work almost as well visually as the expensive spotters you
mentioned.
Lunar viewing is not a "reasonable" need, it requires a critically good
scope if
you want to really see details.  "Semi-apo" at least, one of the ED
scopes.

Since you want a scope to have varied abilities, I would suggest at a
minimum, 
one of the $400 ED 80mm scopes.