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Originally Posted by sejanus
hey guys out of curiousity, does a dobsonian of equal size to a SCT absolutely kill it optically? is the difference in brightness really big?
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I'll add my 2 cents... A long time ago, after I bought my brand new 8 inch SCT, I took it to my friends place who had a home made (excellent) 8 inch Newt. In brief, the Newt just left the SCT dead in its tracks. Side by side, Centaurus A (Caldwell 77) and its dark lane were plainy visible in the Newt, but simply invisible in the SCT, not even with averted vision. OK, we had to use different eyepieces to achieve similar magnification, but in our minds there was no question the Newt just had so much more brilliance and contrast - it was such a disheartening experience since the SCT was brand new. Light gathering and resolution were OK, so planets, star clusters and globulars were pretty good in the SCT (IMHO). But when contrast became more critical, I reckon the SCT just seemed to fall apart.
Maybe at the time I just had a bad one, and maybe todays SCTs are generally better with better coatings etc. who knows, I have to say that modern SCTs look so inviting with Goto mounts. But I eventually replaced the SCT with my Genesis and never looked back. Fox.