As one of the leading advocates for the GSO RC series of scope let me give you some tips.
1. These scopes can be a little finicky to get perfect collimation but it only needs about a good hour to get it perfect.
2. The primary should not need collimaiton work, but the screws are there just in case.
3. These scopes cool down easily and have fans for cooling.
4. The design gives very sharp images.
5. The scope needs a good focusor. The factory one is not good but not great. Choice of focusor can be a significant addition in cost.
6. GSO does not make a dedicated reducer or flattener for this range of scopes. They have a general reducer/flattener but you need to search out a good quality field flattener.
7. Watch out for dew, it can be a pain on the secondary in dewy conditions.
Also owning several SCT's I can say this. Schmidts in my opinion are great for planetary work. You can take a look at my planetary images for confirmation of this if you like. These scopes can also be used for DSO work too. I have not seen much serious planetary work done with an RC and I suspect the contrast loss can be a problem due to the large secondary. On the other hand SCT's dew up endlessly and can be difficult to control dew and prevent tube currents from dew amelioration systems. Added to all this SCT's need to be used on a GEM rather than on a fork for best performance.
Making a choice of which scope to buy can be a bit daunting but each telescope has its strengths and weeknesses and in my opinion not one will suffice to do all jobs.
Good luck with your choice.
|