Hi guys,
I have a 6" dob and am considering my next scope - possibly a 10 or 12" truss tube dob.
What I want to know is does having more aperture actually allow me to push the magnification levels higher on planetary viewing. I know that people say that you can roughly x50 the size of your aperture(in inches) to get the maximum usable amount your telescope can handle magnifying . In my case it would be 300x. Then of course you have to take into consideration the "seeing" conditions at the time which means you only really get to use the scope at its max on exceptional nights. So most times I'd have to drop mine down to between 150-200x to get a reasonably crisp image on planets.
So just because I increase to say a 10 or 12" Dob which can supposedly handle 500-600x magnification, does that actually mean I would practically be able to use a higher mags on planets than I can on my 6" or am I still going to be limited to around 150-200x because of the seeing conditions or other factors regardless of the scope size? If so is there any advantage of having a larger scope for planetary viewing?
Cheers for any input
Ben