[Bassnut (Fred)]

With the Meade 12" f10 I had, I used it with and without a FR. Yes, I could fit more in and image faster with the FR, but I went through a phase where I got sick of the usual objects and went for small galaxies and especially small PN. Without the FR a large number of choices suddenly became doable at a reasonable res and my whole selection process changed, it was a breath of fresh air. The size of the sensor was not a problem as these were all small. Then I went back to the FR and all these objects became too blocky and not worth imaging. Then I was stuck in this zone of regular objects again without being able to do PNs properly.

A 14" f10 FL was popular decades ago but is in a relatively niche space now (everyone is going wide field) so my thinking was use its uniqueness for what other cant do, small galaxies and PNs, where sensor size is not so much of an issue (and CCDs have a much bigger well depth BTW, that can really matter).

I dont know, havent tried, does using a small pixel CMOS binned with a FR on cropped images of PN give a similar result as a large pixel sensor without the FR?. If so, then Im wrong about my thinking and of course a large sensor would be much more versatile.

The full FL at f10 imaging is more difficult of course, but the challenge and producing"different" images is very rewarding.