New 10" GSO Cassegrains have arrived, pondering

[glend (Glen)]

I decided to go ahead and purchase the GSO 8" Classical Cassegrain, instead of the 10" version. My decision was made easier by Larry Carlino's review of the 8", with his side by side comparison with several other scopes. The local price point for the 8" CC is just too good to ignore, in comparison with the competition Larry tested. The 10" CC, as nice as it seems, is just too expensive in the current situation, and from a handling point of view, too much for me unless I left it on the mount all the time.
So the 8" CC is on its way. Thanks for the feedback and advice in this thread along the way.
I will have a report in due course.

[doug mc]

I like mine. I only use it for visual. Used a 150 line ronchi on it the other night. Could not see any problems. Lines dead straight.

[ariefm71 (Arief)]

It will be interesting to see an on-axis view comparison between this 7+ inch clear aperture CC with a Mewlon 180. You can have a second hand Mewlon for just a couple hundred $ more than a new 7+" CC

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

The one thing I'm curious about is the amount of central obstruction with these GSO CC, something like 35%, which is in the same range as SCTs' . Most classical cassegrain designs usually have a lot less obstruction, which is supposed to aid fine detail contrast which is why they are highly regarded for lunar and planetary work. To my mind the amount of C.O. almost defeats the purpose of the CC design . Not saying that the GSOs' would perform badly but it seems that it is a bad compromise just to be able to use some of the same parts as their RCs' to keep down costs.
I would love to see some planetary images taken through the GSO CC compared to other Cl. Cass of a similar aperture.