Quote:
Originally Posted by Ribodab
From my understanding with astrophotography many use small apertures compared to visual astronomy. They use refractors, easier to hand, dont need as heavy duty mounts, no collimation and better sharpness and no centre obstruction. If aperture was the main issue then all astrophotographers would have hugh apertures, but simply don't.
The aperture comes into play with planetary, with astrophotography you put your money into the mount first, and aperture less concerning.
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Respectfully, I would suggest that your statement is a bit generalised.
Whilst it might be true that many astrophotographers use refractors and those have small apertures, it is equally true that mount and guiding errors with wide field imaging hides a lot of errors. Obtaining more defined resolution of targets requires better mounts and better guiding performance.
Collimation is not an impediment to use of a telescopes. It is a skill all users of telescopes should learn and be skilled at to perform. If you know how to collimate your scope it will take no time at all to perform this function.
Whilst larger apertures are employed for planetary imaging, they are also employed for imaging objects in greater detail such as planetary nebulae and distant galaxies. That is why large telescopes are built and continue to be built larger and larger; to see detail in distant and smaller objects. The angular resolving power of a larger scope will always out perform a smaller scope.
Finally, you'll find that many people start with smaller apertures simply because of budget constraints or not wanting to spend too much initially.