How deep can you go with an ST80

[Moon-Monkey]

Good afternoon after finding some messiers then some NGC’s and ending on a beautiful observation of the veil nebula I’m just wondering if anybody else uses the littte ST80 for some DSO’s if so how far did you go with it ? Sure I can go and hunt DSO’s with h my 8” but sometimes I like the challenge and quick setup / tear down of a small refractor 

[RobertI]

If you’ve seen the Veil then you’re doing really well and that bodes well for more faint fuzzies. The Veil is even better with an OIII filter. I bought a 4” refractor after years of observing with an 8” SCT, and with each passing month I am more and more impressed. It is especially good on planetary and doubles, but I am now starting to see it is a really good deep sky instrument too, probably because of the amazing contrast and light transmission. Here is an interesting article showing what can be achieved with a 4” refractor - obviously a bit bigger than your 80mm, but shows what smaller fracs can do:

https://rogerivester.com/2010/05/23/my-4-inch-refractor/

[Moon-Monkey]

Hey buddy yes I totally agree the veil is better with an oiii I only have nebula filters in 2” format so after I found it and observed for a while I done the old over the eyepiece filter technique and saw it much clearer . Currently building a 90/1000 old scs Astro frac for measuring doubles bud looking forward to reading that article 🙂🙂🙂🔭🔭