Aluminium or Carbon Fibre OTA

[matt]

So, you're saying for lunar and planetary go the aluminium?

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by matt

So, you're saying for lunar and planetary go the aluminium?

Yes – if the Al tube was sufficiently cheaper than the CF tube and I didn’t require the thermal properties of CF, I would have personally purchased the Al OTA and put the savings to some other bit of gear. At the time of purchase, there were conflicting reports regarding which was the “best” and so far, I have been content with the CF and its lack of focus change over long exposures.

However, if I figured that in a year or two I might expand my interests into astro photography of DSO’s, I would go the CF route just to minimise focus change, although I must say, the CF tube does look rather sexy!

Cheers

Dennis

[g__day (Matthew)]

Same as Dennis, I went CF to minimise focusing changes for longer duration shots. I finf mine keeps focus day by day, night by night across a wide variation of temperatures. I wonder if Al would do the same!