Planets and deep sky objects, which instrument(s)?

[ken spencer]

I have two telescopic instruments 1 ) a 127 Mak and and 2) a 10" Skywatcher Dobsonian Telescope.  I find with Planets my 127 Mak  gives me better and sharper images than my reflector while the reflector  gives me much better light and detail looking at deep sky objects. I guess you need both although if I had to keep one it would be the reflector as an old rounder. Last night Jupiter was a revelation through my 127 Mak especially with the binoviewers!! I cant recommend binoviewers enough :-) 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

The dob is obviously going to be better on DSOs given that it gathers 4x more light. The Skymax 127 is renowned as a very good planetary scope (and is no slouch on DSOs as long as they fit into the small FOV). However, if all things come together, the 10" Dob should be better on planets. Two things must be considered: the collimation of the Newtonian needs to be spot on, and the seeing must cooperate. A 10" scope should be able to outperform a smaller scope, assuming the optical figure is comparable. Bigger scopes can suffer more from bad seeing because their aperture is larger than single seeing cells.

[itmo]

and assuming the 10" dob is properly collimated 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

and assuming the 10" dob is properly collimated 

Absolutely, that is what I said in my post