TS PHOTON 6" F5 Newtonian Telescope - secondary mirror

[soojooko]

Hi all. I've been in 'beginner' status for a good 9 months now, using a basic 130mm F/5 DOB. I've well and truly caught the bug and am ready to upgrade.

I've had a lot of joy with the DOB and used it both for visual as well as taking pictures using my smartphone. I know at some point in the future I'll likely invest in a DSLR, but for the foreseeable future I think I'll be happy upgrading to a 150mm Newt on an EQ mount with sidereal tracking. I plan to continue using the scope for visual as well as some smartphone fun. But whatever I choose, I would like it to be reasonably competent at imaging via a smartphone - and hopefully with a DSLR later on. Not looking to go pro. Just scratch my cosmic photo itch.

I was about to bite the bullet on a Skywatcher explorer 150p-ds. But then spotted the TS-Photon 6" F/5 : https://www.altairastro.com/ts-photon-6-f5-newtonian-telescope-6358-p.asp

The TS sounds like it has a higher quality primary mirror and a good focuser - as well as being geared towards imaging. However, I noticed the secondary mirror is 63mm! This seems absurdly large for a 150mm scope. My concern is that this telescope is very much geared towards imaging and will be very poor when used visually, particularly on planetary viewing. Is this a valid concern?

Even though I lean towards getting an imaging scope, I don't want to totally sacrifice the visual side of things. I would be happy with a telescope that's stronger when used to image, but is not terrible for visual observing. Would I be better off with the SW 150P-DS which has a more reasonably sized 52mm secondary? ( still quite large, but this is understandable as the P-DS is an imaging scope )

Thanks for reading.

[Guest]

It's a GSO scope and will be in line with the Skywatcher in performance.  I can't speak to how well it will work for imaging, but it would probably be fine for visual

[cajen2]

FLO recommend a 35mil 2" extension if used for visual and there's some suggestion of a coma corrector, maybe for both visual and AP. Make sure your budget can cover that.

I feel there's a danger you could fall between two stools.....do you want a good visual scope that can also do AP fairly well or a good AP scope that you can use to do some visual? A compromise may mean it'll do neither very well.

Edited March 30, 2022 by cajen2

[davidc135]

It's a reasonable concern but visual imagery will only be impacted slightly by the larger obstruction.  David