Hi Guys, I say I say, I will probably end up owning a large aperture scope eventually. But that is just an assumption. There are a few "older" people on IIS that have Tak's or whatever and don't own anything larger (it is obvious though, that there is an overwelmling pro-dob majority that vigorously defend the aperature rules rule, and the odd dob extremist
).
John your points are all valid and I think I have far different observing preferences to you or most people in fact.
Don't really need to explain anything but in case anyone thinks I'm odd:
1. Before I bought my first telescope I saw the pictures in AS&T and S&S and thought the pictures taken with apo's were far better than any other telescope type. Especially the short Newts which which showed coma. The major blow was a picture which was done with a coma corrector and I thought it hardly made a difference. The seed was planted here I think. I have no interest in taking up photography. I sit in front of a computer enough already.
2. Everyone had talked up dobs on this site, so I had my hopes up. The first look though a dob (10-12") shocked me somewhat because the really bright stars looked larger in size than the smaller ones and they had huge diffraction spikes. I thought you only got spikes in photo's.
3. The detail through larger scopes (including sct's) was not what I expected and still isn't. Globular clusters are obviously much better, but fussy blob galaxies are still mostly fussy blobs. I don't really get that kick out of seeing them that most people do.
That's about it, really. There is no "I got hit on the head by an sct when i was five and had nightmares ever since story"
. My wife thinks that us astronomers are just showing our typical male traits by saying "mine is better than yours", just like with cars and that other more personal thing. I don't think that is the case (except those extremist dobbers
). I think we are above that and she should just go and more shoes that never get worn.
The view that I get through in apo is just so pleasing. Personal taste I guess.
The obsession has an absolutely outstandanding mirror in it. It is clearly obvious (even to me
) that it has much better quality optics than the average dob, but it is about 50 to 100 times more expensive than the average dob too.
I would never say that I don't want one. It would just never get used because it's too big. Even Julian says his most used scope is the TeleView NP101 and he would never sell it (I know because asked!
).