Who has the best scope?

[iceworks]

I've been having lots of fun with my first scope, a Meade ETX 125, but I wan't to see more! Should I go Dobsonian, RC, SC or Apo, and what's a good size versus acceptable price for mere mortals? I'm not so fussed about astrophotography, more just enjoying the sky real-time. Love to hear the views of members with experience.:)

[mick pinner]

:Plook out the Dob guys are circling.

[§AB]

Get a dob. Collectively I paid $1200 for my dobs (although secondhand) and they both have excellent optics.

You can pick up a new Bintel 12" for 900 bucks or a 10" for $600. That's cheaper than most 4" refractors, SCTs and MCTs and you'll see a hell of a lot more.

[Alchemy]

DOB..... 16 inch or bigger cheapish (3k) and BANG for your buck

12 inch for under a grand cant go wrong.

[goober]

My scope history was 8" dob (good, kept it until mid-2007), ETX-90 (eh), ED100 (okay), 12" dob (okay, but a logistical beast). My world then got rocked by a 4" alt-az Apo that I was allowed to use for a month. After that, I had to have one. Logged nearly 50+ sessions with it in nine months.

If you want to see "more", get a big dob. If you want to see "more often", that's another story ;)

[wavelandscott]

The best scope is the one that will get the most use!

The relative merits of each type/kind of scope are just that...relative.

The best scope is the one that fits your lifestyle (budget) and viewing habits.

How much do you want to spend and how far will you need to carry it for dark skies?

While not helpful to your question...I do not think that there is any "one size fits all" scope that is best...

[rmcpb]

I have two scopes, an 8" and a 13". Guess which one gives the best views, then guess which one gets used the most.

[iceworks]

It sounds as if portability and ease of use are big factors. Makes sense seeing I spend as much time with binoculars as with my scope. Perhaps a reasonable Apo might be the go. Although would I see any more than with my ETX 125? Don't know much about Apo's and have never looked through one. Any feedback would be great.:D

[Starkler]

Yup it may be a factor in how often you will bother to look. Having said that, many people put smallish scopes on heavy cumbersome eq mounts which makes them a whole lot less portable and convenient than a simple dob or other alt-az mounted scope.



How much you will see is determined by the ability of the scope to collect light.
In other words the greater the aperture, the more you will see. You will see more in a 150mm newtonian than in an etx 125 or a 4 or 5 inch apo on dso's simply because you are collecting more light and delivering it to your eyeball.

[mark3d]

i came to the conclusion that with a scope, to use a motorbike analogy, i couldnt get the weekend cruising BMW and the everyday scooter in one package!

so i bought a dob, in the future i will get a travel scope!

as someone said binocs are the ultimate in portability.

[Domol]

What ever you get, get GOTO functionality too. Then you get more objects per night! The more objects, the more you enjoy it....

[Starkler]

Or a DSC...

[rmcpb]

Or, maybe you will be one of us strange group who actually enjoy the hunt :)

[g__day]

I would imagine I have spent 150 hours just trying to optimise my mount (pointing and tracking) and improve focus and remove flexure.

So instead of viewing, I have been tuning for ages - and its all from lack of documentation on a Japanese mount. Only through serendipity and perseverance did I start to work out what I needed! To me I really want convenience, quality and repeatability in my viewing and photography - so all the work goes into getting the base platform right to achieve these aims.

So my needs are likely very different from yours. Once I have the mount perfected it's the optics and then the CCDs I'll work on. If I wanted to take my kids camping and show them the stars I likely go large binoculars and a quality APO on a smaller goto mount or a truss dob. Now if I wanted real high end imaging - I'd select a permanent dark site, a high end mount and high end apo's. At the moment I use the best mount I can afford, a decent SCT and reasonable refractors into a DSLR - so budget optimised choices all around!

Who has the best gear is a very broad question because its subject to needs, purpose and constrains like, time, travel, skies, targets, portability, finance, ease of use, etc... of the user!

[h0ughy]

the best scope is the one that you love! I love all my scopes, 2 ed80s, 8" SCT, 10" SCT, 16" lightbridge, 5" M500, PST, and a 8" newt R200SS

[PhilW]

My experience is that it depends a lot on your observing context.

I lived for five years in Washington, DC & New York, where the light pollution & atmosphere were both terrible. So I had a small Vixen refractor which I could carry up onto the roof of my apartment building. When I returned to Australia in 2005, I decided I had to have a light bucket to make the most of the southern sky. So I built 10" and 14" dobs in fairly quick succession.

An optically excellent 10" dob is a great balance between portability and aperture. But as this thread illustrates, there are many ways to skin this particular cat (that's 'cat' as in feline, not 'catadioptric' :D).

[Geoff45]

Couldn't agree more. Goto for imaging, star hopping for visual.
Geoff

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Iceworks,

I would have to agree, the binoculars I have (11X70mm) are the bees knees when it comes to seeing lots of things quickly and cheaply (and EASY too).

For $130 I effectively have 2 - 70mm refractors that I can carry around my neck and look at nebulas, double stars and clusters. In fact, since I have bought them, I have used them more and for longer than my 5 inch Newtonian simply because I can chuck them in the car, drive for 5-30 mins depending on how far I want to get away from the house, and sit in my car looking through the sunroof (or is it a mobile Astronomy dome?) in Dark Skies and get blown away at just how much I can see in 10-30 minutes.

Last weekend, only 5 mins from home where there are no street lights, I managed to spot and view M5, M8, M3, M13, 47 Tuc, NGC 3532, NGC 2669 etc etc etc in about 30 minutes and it was GREAT!.

Having said all that, my $400 5 inch Newt is TOPS for looking at Jupiter and Saturn and the moon as well as resolving globular clusters and nebulas at sizes and details that leave the binos in the dust, just more fiddly and cumbersome and harder to set up.

With this gear I am never going to get the details in some of my shots that the big boys and girls get with their massive DOB's, SCT's, MAK's and higher quality ED gear, but for me, I still get blown away at what I can see for the combined price of a Playstation 3. Beat THAT Sony!

I ALMOST got talked into a 8" DOB for about $400 at the time I bought the Skywatcher, but I felt the benefit of tracking with my EQ2 mount outweighed the extra light capacity and details the larger scope would have brought. Plus the fact the DOB would have been relatively harder to "chuck in the car". Also, the scope I bought has now gone back up in price, and it came with a 5 Year Warranty as opposed to a 1 or 2 year one.

My two cents worth...

Chris

[iceworks]

The opinions coming in are fantastic, sounds like finding the best scope is harder than defining the ideal woman( apologies to any female astronomers, I don't mean to sound sexest). I figure we are all amateurs so ease of use must be a priority. GOTO is great because most of us are lazy. Most of us have realistic budgets, so we will never see the martians walking on Mars, maybe just more detail of planets, moon and nearby objects. There must be a limit to aperture size that is relevant to mere mortals. Quality optics must then be the important factor. Come on, hit me with your opinions.

[Brian W]

I have a 4.5" short tube reflector with f/3.9 which gives me incredible views. I also have the use of a 8" SCT which gives me incredible views but in a different way. We have ordered a 10" Orion xt classic. when it arrives we will undoubtedly find it gives us great views too. If we were to win several lotteries we might even buy a Takahashi refractor for US $500,000.00 and get great views.

I would suggest that any telescope of good quality will give you incredible views. The real question is; what type of quality views crank you up. Answer that question and you will know what scope you need to buy for the maximum wow factor.
Brian

[skies2clear]

Brett, I don't think think there is any such thing as the best scope. It depends on the users biases and needs. I can only give my own opinion, FWIW.
The best scope? To me the best scope around 5 or 6" is an APO refractor. Probably this is true for an 8 or 10" scope too, but by best, I mean, gives the best image. However, these things cost a fortune! And as you get to 8" or bigger, they are totally impractical to use because of portability issues and types of mounting they need. Probably fine pier mounted permanently in an observatory. So you see the point...best at what?
I have owned a 6" refractor, and while it was a decent scope, I found I always dragged out my more portable 10" Dob, which cost a hell of a lot less. It also allows me to see more too. Better DSO and planetary/lunar detail than the 6" refractor. I'm not into imaging by the way. So for me, you can't beat a decent dob. Best value scope on the planet in general, as long as the optics are good, but this applies to any telescope type.
As everyone says, aperture makes a big difference, and good quality aperture makes all the difference.
Clear skies.