Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
There is surprisingly very little difference.
Saxon/Skywatcher/Orion are all owned by Synta and therefore exactly the same except for their decals.
GSO is its own, has been around for quite some time although big in the western world, pretty sure they provided the optics and components for the Meade Lightbridge series way back when though. We've only started hearing about GSO quite recently but they've been around for a while.
TS is probably the oddball in all this mix. Their baseline reflectors are all GSO but they do allow for customisation on their ONTC series which can either use GSO mirrors or higher quality ones from another German company (used to be Orion Optics UK but their quality control has really gone down the gurgler).
TS get their carbon fibre tubes custom manufactured, not sure how they compare to the likes of GSO or Synta ones. They do use GSO mirror cells but have some custom secondary supports.
Just to clarify, there is Orion which is Synta and then there is Orion Optics UK which is different... KEEP AWAY! That's about all I can say. Although some good scopes do make it out of there, there are more negative than positive reports/reviews of their products. Customer support appears to be next to non-existent.
Also to clarify, the TS newtonian are largely just rebadged GSO but allow for greater customisation. Their customer support is one of the best in the business.
So to actually answer your question, there isn't much of a difference. When it comes to the non-truss newtonian, the TS ONTC line is possibly a bit better quality as I believe (although not entirely sure) it may have a stiffer CF tube but it has the benefit of having them customise it a bit. You can get them to put on a Moonlite or Feathertouch focuser in factory, you can pay a bit extra for a higher quality primary or get stronger secondary supports or a double vein if you like.
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I bought the TS ONTC because I get the impression that GSO and other cheap newts all require a significant amount of tweaking to overcome flex and various other issues. Whether the ONTC proves better remains to be seen, but I'll probably never know because I've never owned a cheaper newt.
Even within the ONTC line there's differences. Some of them come with GSO mirrors, some of them (more expensive ones) come with a OOUK primary.
The ONTC has a 5-6mm thick foam-core carbon fibre tube said to be much stiffer / better than the tubes found on cheaper newts.
Seems that OOUK used to have a good reputation but it turned to **** after a while, particular with the mechanics of their scopes. Supposedly they still produce good mirrors but QA is not so great. TS test the OOUK mirrors themselves to verify that you don't get a bad one. Mine came with a report detailing 0.99 Strehl, but the report came from OOUK and if you do some research you'll find that their reports seem to be largely worthless.