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Old 20-01-2020, 10:37 PM
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OneCosmos (Chris)
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 537
There is another factor to consider too -and it is a big one.

Even if you had all the money in the world and commissioned a top shelf 50” mirror and combined it with superlative precision build quality scope design and housed it ready to use in a huge comfortable observatory under perfect dark skies with excellent seeing, you still may, just may, prefer the views through the humble 16”!

The reason is field of view. A 50” scope even at F3.3 which many fast mirrors are these days, would have a focal length of 4125mm (and a 50” f3.3 would hard to make and unforgiving of poor seeing and unforgiving on the wallet too). At this focal length even the mighty 21mm Ethos would produce 196X. That is starting to be decent for planets but on the whole definitely on the high side for many nebulae. Personally I find about 120-140x about right and often lower. Almost every other eyepiece no matter what the apparent fov would leave you wishing you could just have a wider view. It is satisfying to see the whole of ETA Carina not just the central part.

With very long focal lengths you have to be content with only ever seeing one bit of large nebulae - brightly for sure, but not with very wide fields.
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