Best visual views?

[Nexus 6]

Hi all on SGL,

I'm sure this question will have been asked on the forum before.

Aperture is king?

What has given you the best visual performance? Scope and eyepiece combination immaterial. Does size always matter?(no laughing now)!

I'm sure if I put a post on a Home Cinema forum asking a similair question i'd get some contrasting opinions.

Clear skies

Alan

[John]

I'm sure that you will get some varied responses to this Alan but my experience is, over 25+ years in the hobby, that my most memorable views have been due to exceptional viewing conditions more than the equipment used - they are the great "leveller" in the UK !.

[Doc]

Dark skies is the key I think. Even a small aperture scope will out gun a large dob under dark skies.

[pvaz]

But if you can get a large dob to a dark sky...

Basically you just need to buy the largest scope you can handle, assemble fast enough and that you'll feel comfortable using everyday. Or, you can do as many do and have a couple of scopes. One for quick observations and one for when you have the time.

[russ]

Aperture is nice but a good balance needs to be struck between aperture and useability or else the telescope could very quickly become a white elephant sat in the corner of the room. Or banished to a dark place never to be seen again. For me the 8" SCT i had until recently struck that balance perfectly. As does the 8" dob i still have.

For simply best visual views i've had from kit i've owned, that would be an Intes Micro M603 for the planets and Meade Starfinder 12.5 for deepsky. Worth noting from Kelling Ant's 200P provided a view of M51 that was beyond what the 12.5 could provide from my garden. Ultimate view from anywhere goes to Hampshire Astro Group's 24" scope, gave mindblowing deepsky views i'll never forget.

[oceanheadted]

Alan,

I think it depends on whether you are talking deep sky or planetary. One night I compared my SW 200p with my evostar 90 for lunar observation. If you could live with the Chromatic abberation the evostar beat 200p. I know the 200p would blow the evostar away on deep sky though.

I read somewhere in the S@N magazine that there isn't much benefit in resoluton for apertures above 110mm for most UK conditions. Light grasp is a different ball game though...

cheers

Alan

[Nexus 6]

Hi all on sgl,

My presumption was exactly as the views expressed on this thread.

I think that the option of having two scopes is befinately what is required to get the best of both worlds, decent apo with quality ep's for solar system and as big as you can manage dob or sct, again with top ep's for dso's.

Thanks for the responces.

Clear skies

Alan

[Demonperformer]

Aperture is nice but a good balance needs to be struck between aperture and useability or else the telescope could very quickly become a white elephant sat in the corner of the room.

I would have to agree with this. I had a 10" dob sat in the corner of my room doing nothing for over a year because I simply could not get it moved to a dark site. Eventually sold it on and bought something smaller/more manageable. Gets much more use and as such I get much better "visual views" with it than I ever did with the dob.