|
Undeniably by far the worst telescope I have ever used and owned was a Bausch and Lomb (= Criterion) 4000.
This little four inch Schmidt-Cassegrain was essentially unable to show anything on the planets but the two major belts of Jupiter. I doubt if it could even split Cassini's division on Saturn.
Paradoxically, on account of its small size and very light weight, it was still a very very useful scope for carting around on holidays, as I am not much of a planetary observer, and the deep sky views were significantly better than they had been through a 3 inch unitron refractor that I owned.
I used it with a small and lightweight altaz mount, and took it overseas, giving me my first views of far northern deep sky objects (from the Mohave Desert.)
Light transmission seemed to be good on my model, and the fuzzy planetary views did not bother madbadgalaxyman, who tends to ignore planets.
All of which is to say that even optically poor 4-5 inch SCs do have their uses, as they are small and light to move around.
|