[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Having recently re-acquainted myself with an identical 4" refractor to the one I first split A Cen with 25 odd years ago, I can confirm that it is definitely a lot harder! At first I thought the optics were rubbish, but eventually came to the conclusion they were as good as any I've seen.
Not sure I agree with the big dobs and central obstruction thing, through a 25" on the same night you could still park the USS Nimitz and the rest of the US first fleet end to end across the gap between the A Cen components. I initially struggled to see Siriuis and the pup at 550x - I wasn't looking far enough away :-)
cheers!
Andrew.