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Window shopping - what’s next?
Dear fellow astrophotographers,
I think it is safe to say that I’m well and truly hooked onto astro-imaging and this will be my main hobby/passion for the years to come.
I currently have a very nice 105mm f/6 that I’m enjoying very much. Having said that, sometimes I wonder if/when/why could I complement it with an instrument of a larger aperture.
I really like the simplicity of a refractor, therefore one possible candidate could be a nice 5” -5.5” refractor that should ride nicely on my Mach1 and would allow to chase smaller DSOs.
On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if a fast f/3 or thereabouts 10” Newtonian would give me even higher resolution in images needed for small targets - I’m thinking of spot sizes in a 4” vs 10”. Yes, I do understand that f/3 is quite extreme, but in theory such instrument would also ride well on Mach1 and give a similar #of arcesconds pet pixel as a 5” refractor.
But there are so many things that may require attention and extra care with such Newtonian...I had a Newtonian in the past but it was f/8 so collimation was easy and didn’t need to be very precise for my purposes at the time.
So in short - would it be worth complementing a 4” with a 5” or the difference in spot sizes (diffraction due to aperture) would be minimal and I should more seriously consider a reflector?
RC is also an option, but it would require a different camera so I’m thinking that a Newtonian would be better for me.
At this stage this is a purely hypothetical upgrade.
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