Telescope Choices , my thoughts.

[PaulR1]

So right now I'm still in the process of learning and collecting gear.

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When I first started looking at telescopes available , I was like taken aback a bit by the 10" quattro newtonian. (biggest is best right)

Well looked into it further and saw how much fiddling there can be with one of these , then I'm reading threads here and see this one :

Now correct me if I am wrong but the ED80 seems a nice simple and small telescope which can obviously from the images in that thread produce some really nice results. Of course the people posting those images will have some good knowledge about post processing, I get this.

Question is what can a big  10 " newtonian do for me compared to what seems to be the easy option of an ED80 apart from giving me lots of fiddling and setup headaches when really what I want to be doing it actually imaging stuff rather than spenging my time messing about ?

Is biggest or bigger really better ?

[scitmon]

Bigger always better? Definitely not.  The main 'benefit' the quattro gives you is the longer focal length.  This will give you more zoomed in pictures: https://goo.gl/fchVvi

But this is not always a good thing for some targets: https://goo.gl/KrWppn

The longer focal length also makes tracking more demanding, and you will need a big sturdy mount for the extra weight of the Quattro.  Something like the ED80 is a much better entry into the astrophotgraphy world.

[billyharris72]

A fast 10" newt will give you lots of things an ED never could:

* It'll teach you a lot about collimation

* You'll learn the importance of not having twisted spider vanes

* And the mechanics of having rock solid tube rings

* Diffraction spikes

* Appreciation of still nights

In all seriousness, the bigger scope will have better resolution (though with UK seeing this is a limited advantage) and the extra aperture is good for grabbing more photons with less time on fainter targets. But for the vast majority of targets it seems to me the ED80 is more than adequate (as the above posts show) and less faff.

A good, well tuned, large, F4 Newt under optimal conditions should outperform an ED80 by quite a way, but in most peoples' hands, most of the time, it won't be working optimally. All those moving parts mean its average, "real world" performance may not be that much better if at all. I'm also not sure how good the Quattro is - I've been put off by a few reviews that suggest the mechanical construction is not what it needs to be (and it needs to be very good). I'm waiting in the forsaken hope that one day I'll stumble across a Tak Epsilon for a tenner in the local charty shop.

Another advantage of larger aperture is that it can support a longer focal length (though obviously then it's not fast so an f4 Newt is not a good comparison) and so could be good for planets, planetary nebulae etc. But that's more a slow Newt or a big Cat.

All in all, if you're looking for a first scope with imaging as your main aim, then I'd say the ED80 sounds like a great choice.

Billy.

[PaulR1]

Thanks for the input guys , appreciate it , ED80 it is then

[scitmon]

The ED80 is about as good as it gets for it's cost in my opinion, but there are other better small refractors out there if you have a bigger budget?