Quote:
Originally Posted by ausastronomer
Having owned both tube style dobs and truss dobs, I will never go back to a tube style dob again. A truss dob is just so much more storable, portable and transportable.
If you can't afford a premium truss in the 12" to 15" aperture range, or build your own, consider the 12.5" lightbridge. From my experience all of the 10" and 12.5" GSO optics I have seen have generally been very good to excellent, apart from the odd lemon that has slipped through the net. My own 10" GSO mirror is exceptional, almost the equal of just about any premium hand made mirror. Two of the 12.5" lightbridges that I have used have also been right up there. The 2 x 16" Lightbridge's I have used, whilst very useable were optically not the equal of the smaller aperture GSO optics I have used. I guess it comes down to large fast optics being somewhat more difficult to "mass produce" than smaller aperture slower optics.
Cheers,
John B
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Agreed. The optics in my 10" GSO are superb, to the point where I'm reluctant to sell it even though I have my 12" with a mirror that is rated as "up there with the very best". I've used the 10" at mags over 600x to observe small planetary Nebulae, with great results.