Keeping it real , light skies.

[cotterless45]

It’s an enticing quandary. Visual Astro .

Our urban skies have declined in quality. Led lighting and the proliferation of new houses have crushed contrast .

Past times included views of the Milky Way through Cygnus . Now we’re lucky on the poorest of nights to get 12 stars by eye before the moon gets going . 

I used to happily sit and draw the whale galaxy using a 10” Dob . Now I can hardly see M82. 

The lust for faint fuzzies definitely exists ! Aperture and dark skies cry out ! But for most of us ;

Solution to get results !

Forget the big aperture . A 4” achromatic refractor . You’ll catch open clusters , globular clusters , planetary clusters, el moon , planets and binary stars . Just upgrade to a 5” or 6” if your mount will manage . 

You’ll find that 4” will cope with poor atmospheric conditions and outshoot bigger Newts and Cats ( yikes) if the going gets tough. 

Ignore apos and ed scopes .for the visual amateur user just enjoy what your budget will accept . Remember , you want it , but do you need it ? 

There’s the advantage of reasonable cost , easy of handling and sheer pleasure with fracs . 

There’s little benefit in dreaming of the unreachable in poor skies . Best advice I can give , adapt and adjust ! 

Clearer skies !

Nick.

[wookie1965]

Very true I should of listened to you and forgo getting a big dob. 

[Franklin]

41 minutes ago, cotterless45 said:

A 4” achromatic refractor .

A Vixen 102M was my only scope for a couple of decades and I couldn't agree more with you.

[John]

I too had good 4 inch achromat refractors early in my time in this hobby - Vixen and TAL. 

I enjoyed them but looking back on that time, I didn't really get anywhere near their potential. 

It's taken me many years with different scopes, most larger in aperture, to learn a bit about what an astronomical telescope can achieve and how to get the best from them. Using this experience I can now get a lot more from 3, 4 and 5 inch refractors and realise that they can do an excellent and pretty comprehensive job for the amateur astronomer.

But, if I had never owned anything with more light grasp and resolution than a 4 inch refractor I might well have lost interest in the hobby and moved on thinking "is that it ?". Well of course it's not, I NOW realise 🙂

So I agree with Nick's post in principle, but I do also think that experience with larger apertures can ensure that the smaller ones can be exploited more fully 🙂

 

 

[bosun21]

I agree with you up to a point. I don’t think, I know that an apo gives more pleasing views (at least to my eyes) and provides more enjoyment. I absolutely love my 4” apo but on a dark moonless night it can’t compete with my 12” dobsonian. This is to be expected considering it’s triple the aperture. Some people aren’t the least bit bothered by CA whereas others hate it. You probably fall into the former group.

[JeremyS]

The first part of my astronomy journey was to increasingly large aperture Newts and SCTs. I still use the latter for CCD photometry. But then I discovered small high quality apo refractors for visual. The world has never been quite the same since (apart from a pleasant diversion last year by way of a Mewlon 210)

[badhex]

I too started with a 6" newt and then a Mak 102, and at the time looked at fracs, thinking "too expensive and heavy for any decent aperture, so why bother?". I couldn't really have been more wrong - my 102mm and 73mm doublets are by far my favourite scopes at this point! 

[scarp15]

Good point. What I am most looking forward to, for the return of the autumn winter skies, is to get back to a particular remote place on the England, Scotland border that is truly dark. It will involve some hiking and wild camping. As I have only done once before, the refractor; convenient and ideal in this scenario, for capitalising on wide-field and encountering some of the delights to had. After which, rather than facing a tired journey home, which I am much less in recent times inclined to do, I can simply crawl into the tent, for literally a night under the stars.