Thomas Blose

On 03/07/2012 at 18:32, swamp thing said:

Hi

For me it would come down to what I wanted my scope to do?

For planets there is little to seperate the two as seeing is just as likely to limit what you can and can't see when you get to these kind of sizes. The limits of seeing are very easily reached with an 8" scope so there is little to gain from the 10".

On DSO,s though it's a different story here the advantage of the extra aperture of the 10" is pretty noticeable. It pulls out more detail specially in globs. It can also really help with galaxies and nebulae.

it is often said that the minimum deep sky scope is an 8", so as you can imagine 8"= good, 10" = better

Just as an extra thought:

There is also of coarse the upgrade in a few years. With a 10" you may never wish to go bigger, with an 8" the next jump to a larger scope for me would be to 12". This can be a big bulky lump.

Of coarse if you do go on from 10" you are realistically looking at a 16"

Good luck with your decision

For lunar and planetary viewing is there a big difference between an 8 and 10?

Is there a big difference in lunar and planetary viewing between a 10 and a 12? I have a 6 now. Was considering an 8 but now set on a 10 as a 10 gathers 178% more light than a 6. But the 12 is 86lbs where the 10 is 66lbs. That being an apertura d10

I have an Orion xt6 that I really like. I'm thinking of either an 8 or 10🤔🤔 I'm into cellphone astrophtography of the moon and planets. Going from a 6 will the views in an 8 or 10 be vastly different? Or is the larger aperture mainly for deeper space objects?