12" skywatcher v 10" Orion dobs?

[marcdearn]

Votes please......I have just stopped smoking and by putting the fiver a day in a tin I will have one of these by christmas....but which one????????

Or should I get a goto Mak127??????

Bloomin hell...my head hurts

[GazOC]

If you are confident the extra size won't put you off setting it up or using it then go for the 12".

[marcdearn]

Thanks for the (very!!) rapid reply!

It isnt the size or weight that puts me off it is the price...I have permission to spend 650-700 on the scope and obviously that means a 12" OO is out of the question

Is there that much difference in the quality ?

and in the light grasp?

Suppose I had better get to a star party before Xmas ???

[russ]

I've just switched to a 12" dob, had one before, so knew what was coming. My only negative with the 12" is the two part move. With the 10" dob it can moved as whole quite easily. So moving 100ft up and down the garden finding better spots was not a problem. With the 12 i can only move it a few feet as a whole and that is a real struggle. My third time out i setup, quickly whizzed around the sky and then realised i needed a different spot for M27. And it was quite a flaff to lift the tube out, stand it on the grass, then move the box and then go retrieve the tube again. And i needed to move it again after that for Jupiter. That's the only downside to the 12 dob.

I really missed the last 12 and i'm really pleased to have one again. It worth the extra flaff. The extra aperture really is worth it. If i had the choice of a OO 10" or SW 12", i would take the SW in a flash. The big draw of the OO for me is not the optics but their lovely dob base.

[GazOC]

I've never owned an Orion Dob so I can't comment directly on the quality but there was an extemely long thread on here a year or so ago on Orion vs. Skywatcher mirrors and I think the general concensus was that the Orion was better but not by enough to make much of a difference under UK skies.

I have owned both 10" and 12" Dobs and, to me, the difference in light grasp is clearly noticable but not huge.

[John]

I have an OO 10" F/4.8 Newtonian which I use on an alt-azimuth mount:

http://stargazerslounge.com/members-equipment-gallery/104238-orion-optics-10-alt-azimuth-mounted.html

It's pretty portable for a 10" and I can pick the whole thing up and move it around my garden pretty easily - I'd not want to try stairs with it in 1 piece though TBH.

I used to have a 12" Meade Lightbridge dobsonian which was a nice scope but a lot heavier and was definately a two section carry, and even then I would not want to go far with either section !.

I've not noticed much difference in observing between the 12" and the 10" so far TBH - the OO scope has the Hilux coatings and a 1/6th wave PV primary wheras the Meade had standard Si coatings and probably a 1/4 wave primary which might account for the lack of much noticable difference. I guess

Anyway, I really appreciate the portability and my 10" OO is getting used a lot more than my Meade LB 12 ever was