Colin, that's nicely detailed and from a scope not much larger than my own. How heavy is it?
If money was no object, I'd love to experiment with different scopes and sensors and see how it works out with today's technology.
Reality is means tested
but one of the aspects of my curiosity is what I'm sacrificing by not going for a larger scope while I'm more or less physically able to do so. The flip side is I like to push my kit and see what I can get. I'd hate to get to retirement age and realise I've been doing it wrong all along
In the end I'd probably be much happier with a rig I get consistent performance out of than one where I always want for better nights because the sky occasionally teases a larger scope. My 4" is a solid performer, even then I can see that fluctuation in FWHM between a night of decent seeing and one less so. On the less so night, I might as well sacrifice a little resolution for speed with a reducer.