Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirkus
Thanks, Carl.
So it looks like I could pick up a new Orion ED100 for around $700 (US). That's a little more than what I was going to pay for an 8" reflector. But is there really that much difference between my 6" SN and an 8"?
It's almost making more sense to keep my 6" for my attempts at DSOs (a much bigger challenge) and spend my money on an ED100 for use with planetary. Does that sound about right?
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Yes, the 8" will gather 177.78% more light than the 6", so you're going to be able to see much fainter objects. The ED100 will be great for planetary work, but it'll also be good for DSO's as well. The big advantage with the ED is that it'll be a lot more portable than the 8". Your 6" with a good CCD or DSLR will do DSO's a lot of justice, and being a SN you should have fairly well corrected shots across a rather wide FoV.
Another thing to consider is you will need a guidescope and guider for when you start to take piccies. You don't want something terribly big for that, a 60-80mm refractor will suffice. It could be a cheap achro' refractor as you probably won't use it to take piccies...say like an Orion 80mm short tube and their guider. That would make a good combo for guiding.
However, if you got a Meade 8" SN and the guidescope combo, you'd have a really sweet setup to take piccies with. It would be really good for DSO's (especially large fuzzies at its native FL/f ratio) and with a powermate in the image train it would be good with planets as well. Though, I would replace the Meade mount with an EQ6 or similar, as the Meade mount won't handle the weight you'd have setup on it.