Quote:
Originally Posted by OneCosmos
Both were beautiful views but there isn’t a person alive, (not even Jonathan) who could look through both one after the other and not award first prize to the refractor – no ambiguity no caveats at all; the refractor view was hands down many times better. To say it was pin sharp doesn’t do it justice, it looked etched on to the glass with the finest virtual chisel ever not made. Cassini’s division was more than obvious, it looked so sharp and contrasty that you could cut your fingers on its sharp edges – and that goes for the planet too. There was obvious detail on the surface and beautiful colours to boot. There is simply no finer view possible. The physics isn’t wrong it is just that there is more to it than the maths on the page imply - that must be true.
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That's exactly right... If by "The Physics" you mean, the resolution part of the picture that is. Yes the reflector should have 16/6 ~=2.7 times better resolution, BUT there are a number of factors that conspire to even the margin somewhat:
1. The atmospheric seeing.
2. Differences in the (contrast robbing) light scattering in the instruments
3. The presence of a secondary mirror (or camera in its place) and its effect on contrast, scattering and resolution.
4. The fact that we humans perceive sharpness in an image psycho-optically as a combination of BOTH
- the fineness of graduation (resolution) in an image AND
- the image contrast
I don't think it's possible to ever say unequivocally, out-of-hand, "X beats Y", without a real-world test, such as the one you've conducted, and even then, only for the items tested subject to one's own decision criteria. In this case it's image quality - so that'd be a biggie
Thanks for sharing your results.
Best
JA