Marian M

Hi friends in astronomy, extremely happy and excited for the first time being here 😀 ! This would be my first post here, hence I need to give you a small background of myself. I have been enjoying astronomy for past 20 years with a Russian 20x60 Russian binocular only but last year I have decided to move up to larger instruments. First acquisition has been a plain EQ5 and a 120/600 SW achro, followed soon by a MAK 127. Both instruments are great for what they are designed, and I had great time in observations with few peers, here in Romania, outside the city were we are living in. At some point of time, I felt is high time to move to something larger and somehow took it in a logical order- just bought some time back a larger mount- AZEQ6. Extremely happy with it, is just playing with the 2 instruments I have now, well built, no vibration, very steady views with the 2 instruments. My interest is only on visual, no imaging planning, and I like the most Moon and DSO on same place and less planets. I am looking mostly either to a C8/ C8 HD or a Mak 180, not so much Newtonians/ Dobsonian, where the discussion starts. I was looking on CC 200 and MN190 but at the end of the day I think C8 and Mak 180 are remaining on the short list. Also to mention I like binoviewing. I have done plenty of reading around the 2, about large time to cool down mostly on Mak, about collimation on spot for C8, about larger obstruction/ softer view on C8, pin point stars on Mak but smaller FoV, attention to back focus for bino and so on. APO at larger aperture seem too expensive, I may buy at a latter stage an achro 150 f5.9, which should supplement well the Mak (or C8), which should be the "poor man APO" 😀 I understand also that Mak on Moon has a slightly advantage vs C8, hence my main question is how the 2 performs on a like to like comparison on DSO. It is that large difference between the 2 on most of the DSO? Did you have the opportunity to look through both at the same time? Are stars more “pin point” in Mak vs C8 or C8 HD? Really appreciate your further answers and look forward, wish you clear skies ahead!