Quote:
Originally Posted by leon
I think I know what you are saying Doug, and if we were all honest with ourselves most of us tend to want the best, even if we can't afford it.
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Too true! We also like to kid ourselves into believing that it is money well spent. Yet, once a certain level of performance is reached any tiny incremental performance gain is bought with a lot of additional cost. If a $200 piece of gear performs twice as good as a $100 part of a cheaper brand the same can rarely be said about the step up to a $400 model. With escalating investment the returns are truly diminishing.
However, the nagging uncertainty of what could be tempts many of us (myself firmly included) into spending more that we should in areas where we probably shouldn't. But, thus is human nature, and the best precaution against foolish spending one can take is probably doing real-world side-by-side testing under one's own circumstances whenever one gets the chance to do so. Astronomy can be both a solitary and a social pursuit, those who get the opportunity to rub shoulders with fellow observers in the field should make the best of it and could save a lot of money in the process.
Cheers
Steffen