are maks any better

[Daniel-K]

ok looking to purchase my 2nd scope i have sold my 200p and just woundering if Maksutov are better than the reflectors?

[ollypenrice]

Maksutovs are reflectors, or more accurately catadioptrics. The answer is 'no, they are different.'

The great thing about a Newt is that you can have a fast f ratio, hence a large aperture still capable of giving a wide field of view, though imagers need to do something about the inherent coma at the edge of the field.

A Maksutov has a sharp field and a slow f ratio with long focal length. This gives a great view of smaller objects like planets and close up regions of the moon.

Planetary imagers and observers like them, deep sky imagers don't since they are too slow.

Most amateur sized Maks are small enough still to have a reasonable field of view so many like them. They are close to premium apo refractors in sharpness and contrast but much cheaper and more compact.

But if you go for a Mak much smaller than your 8 inch the loss of aperture will hurt on the deep sky.

Olly

[sixela]

So the answer is no.

I'd have suggested to tell us what you thought was wrong with the 200p, but I see it's already sold, so we aren't going to chase its gremlins (which are different from those of a typical Mak; if you don't get collimation, thermal behaviour, baffling etc. shaped up on a Newt, it can indeed easily underperform, but that has little to do with the design).

What didn't you like in the 200p? That will tell us much more directly whether the Mak is for you or not.

[Daniel-K]

i basicly want the best scope that i can get. i felt like the 200p just didnt do it for me i'm think about getting the 300p flexi tube.goto although i love the dobs i have bought a dslr to try thr astro imaging side, or making my own!

[sixela]

Well, why exactly didn't you "feel" the 200p "did it" for you?

The "best" scope is hard to tell unless you set the boundary conditions...

[Daniel-K]

just like BIG toys lol... it was a great first scope but i just felt its time to move on to something else

[sixela]

And *why*?

[Aussie Observer]

The best scope is the one you use all the time!

[jonathan]

I read that Maks are like SCTs, but more finicky and less forgiving, but potentially can give better views than SCTs (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

So, if you want something that's easier to use then consider an SCT over a Mak or Reflector, if you want to be able to see those faint DSOs then get a large one (6" or 8"). The SCT and Mak are very compact so are easier to move around and store than Reflectors, the weight just depends on what kind of mount you put it on.

A good Refractor can give superb views and be compact enough to put in a case for easy storage, but again if you want to see those faint DSOs you will need to consider a 120 instead of an 80 or smaller. With a Refractor you can also get the best from high quality eyepieces as they are faster scopes than SCTs / Maks, but beware cheap eyepieces as Refractors are less forgiving than SCTs because of their fast focal ratio.

I avoided the Reflectors mostly because of their size, but also because I read that they are not as sharp as SCTs or Refractors, particularly towards the edge of the field - an expensive correcting eyepiece could probably be used to counter this, SCTs and Refractors already contain glass and lenses which perform this action.

[sixela]

I read that Maks are like SCTs, but more finicky and less forgiving, but potentially can give better views than SCTs (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Generalisations like that are usually neither wrong nor right - it all depends on the specifics. Optically, Maksutovs are simply better than the "generic" SCT (as far as coma and flatness of field is concerned) even though the best optical designs are not those where the secondary is just an aluminised spot.

But the effective aperture is dictated by the corrector (i.e. the aperture is smaller than the primary) and at large apertures the corrector becomes heavier and extremely expensive to make.

That's why Maks are popular mainly up to 150-180mm and SCTs mainly *from* that aperture range onwards, so there's not that much overlap.

But the "basic" designs aren't the only ones: you have a number of aplanatic SCT designs that are better than the generic SCT (some with extra corrector in the baffle tube, you have the Klevtsov-Cassegrain Tals that use the Maksutov recipe but with a sub-aperture corrector to extend its reach into large apertures,...

...there's an entire forest of designs, so making a general statement is really, really hard.

I avoided the Reflectors mostly because of their size, but also because I read that they are not as sharp as SCTs or Refractors, particularly towards the edge of the field

It's a mixed bag if you compare with SCTs -- SCTs do have a lot of coma and field curvature for their f/ratio, actually much more than high f/ratio Newtonians (which usually have excellent off-axis images but are very cumbersome when they are large, which explains why they are not that popular for large apertures).

If you want nice sharp stars in an f/5 Newtonian even in wide field eyepieces, yes, you do have to get a Paracorr and expensive eyepieces if you use them unbarlowed (but those unbarlowed eyepieces will show you a true field of view inaccessible to a Mak of equal aperture).

You first reason is a valid one; I'm not sure your second reason is actually valid at face value unless you'd be a lot more specific (and if you just lump all "reflectors" on one heap, it's certainly more of a prejudice than a fact).

SCTs and Refractors already contain glass and lenses which perform this action.

Well, on refractors it's simply a feature of the basic design, but if you want a short one they're really expensive in large apertures. SCTs actually have their fair share of aberrations off-axis, even though the Edge-On HD Celestrons have less (but they have a corrector in the baffle, so they're not that different from a Newtonian with a Paracorr). Maks do have less off-axis aberrations than SCTs, but in the sizes the yare common, you can find fairly long f/ratio Newtonians too (6" Dobs are f/8 and farily forgiving to eyepieces and also don't really have that troublesome off-axis aberrations.

Again, the devil is in the detail.

A 6" f/8 is a very different beast from a 22" f/3.6 Newtonian (which few people would buy without a Paracorr).

And 20" APOs do exist and beat almost anything of equal aperture, but they're long and a good one will cost you about half a million Euro for the mount and 850 thousand Euro for the tube.