[clive milne]

Originally Posted by Profiler

I haven't yet come across someone who says "I used an AP Starfire for 5 years but then I sold it in a heart beat because I got fantastic/better views etc etc from a 10' Dob/Newt"

Well... now you can say that you have come across someone who used to own a 7" AP Starfire (one of the originals with the NASA glass) and without prejudice I sold it because my home made 12" dob was significantly better in every respect bar 1. The view through the refractor was slightly less contaminated with light scatter. This advantage was only relevant 0.5% of the time (trying to resolve Antares)

In my experience however, absolutely nothing comes within a bulls roar of a well built binocular Newtonian for impact and image fidelity... the 7" AP wasn't even on the same page, it was not even close to being included as an honourable mention in the foot notes.

2c