The endless debate ... What telescope type to use.... Reflector/Refractor/SCT/Mak/RC/Dob

[Cold_n_cloudy]

I initially bought a 150 reflector which was mounted on an Alt/Az mount 'borrowed' from our son who introduced my wife and I to the hobby. This still serves me well but I was eventually seduced by all the talk of the amazing contrast that only a refractor will give you and after a year or so I bought a 125mm refractor from FLO, put it on an EQ5 mount and was prepared to be amazed..... I was not.

The difference between the two was far more subtle than I expected and depending on the sky conditions barely noticeable.  The contrast improvement is something that you have to work at by spending more time at the eyepiece and generally gaining more experience, but as said already, it's subtle. I appreciate of course the smaller aperture of the refractor but it has an extra 200mm of focal length.  Another thing of course is set up time, the Az mount and reflector takes half the time to set up and is lighter so tends to be the one that gets used.  Long story short I feel that I have spent quite a lot of money for very little gain.

The reason for the post is really for any relative newcomers to the hobby or anyone currently listening to the siren calls of an upgrade in equipment, just think long and hard, get as much advice as possible from as many sources as you can (I'm sure you will) before pressing the buy button. The upgrade may not be what you are hoping for.

Now I'm just off to research an SCT....  

Edited Friday at 11:23 by Cold_n_cloudy

[John]

When you say differences, what targets are we talking about ?

 

[Cold_n_cloudy]

6 minutes ago, John said:

When you say differences, what targets are we talking about ?

 

I try to observe a range of targets, planets, doubles, clusters, Galaxies (if I can see them)

[chrisecurtis]

The law of diminishing returns seems to apply with more force in astronomy. Many upgrades are "subtle" but the cost is not. 

All telescopes are compromised. It's really not possible to have all aspects of the optics perfect and perfectly fitted to their use. Attempting to remove one issue (e.g. coma or chromatic aberration) will tend to push you into other issues. When you add in the costs and practicalities (e.g. it's cheaper and easier to make mirrors larger than lenses), that's why we have so many different designs. If there was one that worked for everything, that's all that would be made and that's what we would all buy. 

I think people are happiest with their scopes when they think hard about what is most important to them and make sensible compromises to suit them. Do you need big apertures? - then what are the compromises you'll need to make with reflectors? (e.g. need to collimate, correcting coma, size and weight etc.) Do you need long focal length? - what are the compromises? 

And the bottom line is the bottom line. Precision, excellent design and beautiful construction doesn't come cheap, sadly. Almost everyone will have to buy a compromised scope but if its strengths and weaknesses match what you want to do, you won't notice the compromises.

 

[Sunshine]

You’re right, this can be an endless debate but where you find peace of mind is in determining what works best for you and your situation and filtering out all the endless chatter in forums about what is better than what else. If I were to start off in this hobby right now, forums such as this and others would completely exhaust my finances trying to achieve happiness based on what I gather from other’s opinions on the “best” telescope. 
 

Sad to say but it took me two decades of buying and selling telescopes in search of what I thought would be the “best” choice. In the end I realized there is no best, magical design or aperture that would do it all. You can save yourself a load of money and heartache by filtering out the endless chatter and settle on what works best for tour lifestyle and sky conditions. In the end all that matters is that you are happy with what you’ve got and not getting caught up in the rat race for the magical, do it all telescope. That being said, my telescopes won’t be my last, but not because I yearn for better,  I simply enjoy exploring.

Edited Friday at 12:26 by Sunshine

[Elp]

Also the experience depends on which actual scopes were used for comparison. You can't generalise.

[TiffsAndAstro]

6" sct with HyperStar.

I've only seen pics, and I'm a noob, but it does everything.

Relatively light, portable, 1.5m of FL if you're a loon 0.7 0.63 even 0.4 reducers and of course hs at f2

And, though I've never tried either, less collimation issues than a newt. Maybe.

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

22 minutes ago, Elp said:

Also the experience depends on which actual scopes were used for comparison. You can't generalise.

Honestly, for such a science based hobby, stuff is so vague and unscientific.

Divining for water is more scientific 

[AlcorAlly]

Thank you for sharing your experience @Cold_n_cloudy! It was interesting to read because I had completely opposite experience.

I started with a Heritage 150 dob 2.5 years ago. It was (and still is!) a great telescope, particularly on deep sky objects. But for planets and double stars I much prefer the presentation in my 4" refractor. Yes, the reflector, when well collimated, can resolve more detail, but the aesthetic appeal on some objects matters more to me than the amount of detail. An EQ mount with its basic tracking makes it easier to better appreciate the view by studying the same object for a prolonged period of time and sketching it. 

[TiffsAndAstro]

Also, just wanted to add

"Money can't buy you love"

But it can buy a 14" Rasa and a 10micron mount.

 

 

[John]

On deep sky objects I would expect the additional aperture of the 150mm reflector to deliver slightly more than the 125mm refractor. On high resolution targets such as the moon, planets and double stars I would expect the refractor to be marginally better.

You are right though that such differences are often marginal / subtle. It's a similar situation with the differences between good and top end eyepieces. 

As you get more experienced and committed to the hobby I think the temptation of performance gains, even small ones, gets more enticing so the "cost vs benefit" analysis changes subtly 😉

Edited Friday at 16:07 by John

[Mr Spock]

Having been a visual observer for over 50 years I consider myself suitably experienced. I've had a number of scopes around that size: a 6" Newtonian, two 140mm/150mm Maks (they are the same size), the former had premium optics, and recently a 6" CC.
None of them are close to the performance of my 100mm apo. Admittedly it did cost more than the others put together! 

[Paz]

10 hours ago, Cold_n_cloudy said:

The contrast improvement is something that you have to work at by spending more time at the eyepiece and generally gaining more experience

I think this point has some truth to it, the more I have observed the more subtle are the differences that I notice. I would also say the more I have observed the more I have gravitated towards refractors and the kind of views that they serve up.

[bosun21]

I'm the opposite in that I found I enjoy the views through my 10" dobsonian and 180 Maksutov more than my refractors. I think a large part of this is down to the aperture difference between them. My refractors are 80ED and 120ED. This is not to detract from the excellent pin sharp views they provide, it's just that I seem to be using them less and less in favour of the others.

[Cold_n_cloudy]

On 29/11/2024 at 12:21, Sunshine said:

You’re right, this can be an endless debate but where you find peace of mind is in determining what works best for you and your situation and filtering out all the endless chatter in forums about what is better than what else. If I were to start off in this hobby right now, forums such as this and others would completely exhaust my finances trying to achieve happiness based on what I gather from other’s opinions on the “best” telescope. 
 

Sad to say but it took me two decades of buying and selling telescopes in search of what I thought would be the “best” choice. In the end I realized there is no best, magical design or aperture that would do it all. You can save yourself a load of money and heartache by filtering out the endless chatter and settle on what works best for tour lifestyle and sky conditions. In the end all that matters is that you are happy with what you’ve got and not getting caught up in the rat race for the magical, do it all telescope. That being said, my telescopes won’t be my last, but not because I yearn for better,  I simply enjoy exploring.

Thank you Sunshine for being so honest and I suspect that you are far from alone in regard to telescope 'churn'.

[Cold_n_cloudy]

On 29/11/2024 at 13:02, TiffsAndAstro said:

Honestly, for such a science based hobby, stuff is so vague and unscientific.

Divining for water is more scientific 

You nailed it!  

[scarp15]

Considering perpetual irregular weather patterns, life commitments etc, being manageable and as becoming relatively 'grab and go' is probably a primary consideration in decision making. A smallish aperture refractor and a smallish to moderate sized dobsonian combination, is for visual astronomy, perhaps one practical consideration. 

[Cold_n_cloudy]

On 29/11/2024 at 17:50, Mr Spock said:

Having been a visual observer for over 50 years I consider myself suitably experienced. I've had a number of scopes around that size: a 6" Newtonian, two 140mm/150mm Maks (they are the same size), the former had premium optics, and recently a 6" CC.
None of them are close to the performance of my 100mm apo. Admittedly it did cost more than the others put together! 

That's interesting Michael, thank you.  I would not have guessed that the smaller aperture apo would have come out on top.

[dweller25]

On 29/11/2024 at 11:04, Cold_n_cloudy said:

I initially bought a 150 reflector which was mounted on an Alt/Az mount 'borrowed' from our son who introduced my wife and I to the hobby. This still serves me well but I was eventually seduced by all the talk of the amazing contrast that only a refractor will give you and after a year or so I bought a 125mm refractor from FLO, put it on an EQ5 mount and was prepared to be amazed..... I was not.

The difference between the two was far more subtle than I expected and depending on the sky conditions barely noticeable.  The contrast improvement is something that you have to work at by spending more time at the eyepiece and generally gaining more experience, but as said already, it's subtle. I appreciate of course the smaller aperture of the refractor but it has an extra 200mm of focal length.  Another thing of course is set up time, the Az mount and reflector takes half the time to set up and is lighter so tends to be the one that gets used.  Long story short I feel that I have spent quite a lot of money for very little gain.

The reason for the post is really for any relative newcomers to the hobby or anyone currently listening to the siren calls of an upgrade in equipment, just think long and hard, get as much advice as possible from as many sources as you can (I'm sure you will) before pressing the buy button. The upgrade may not be what you are hoping for.

Now I'm just off to research an SCT....  

I think you had an unrealistic expectation of the 125mm refractor based on glowing reports from what you may have read ?

My advice however is to stick with the refractor and get as much experience with it as possible - it may just surprise you.

I would also suggest you hold off buying an SCT for now as in my opinion they are not the best choice for visual astronomy.

Edited Saturday at 21:38 by dweller25

[Elp]

On 29/11/2024 at 17:50, Mr Spock said:

None of them are close to the performance of my 100mm apo

From my limited experience (acro, apo, newt, sct) and nothing larger than 6 inch, I'd tend to agree with this. Obviously with a large reflector/catadioptric aperture (and generally the longer FL they give) you'd have more resolution which you should be able to see on solar system objects right away (as well as with other targets), but through my baffled tube 100mm SF102, the views are just that much sharper, lines are better defined, contrast is stark. With my C6 for example half the time I'm wondering if I'm actually looking at a DSO object or not (I have high LP), with the refractor it's not a case of what if, it's more like what more can I extract. My most defined view of M31 is through this 100mm.

Edited Sunday at 09:41 by Elp