A question for opinionated people...

Thanks all for replying- great info.

As I thought, quite an array of opinions. I knew it would divide us!!!

I'm still, I think, with Stephen at the moment with the 16" flextube. Although, the collimation falls out of my lightbridge so quickly its a little bit unbelievable. To be honest I don't know whether it's just my scope or whether its part of the dob/truss make-up. But either way, that alone makes a compelling case for Paul's 80ED, Dave's APO, and, of course, Paul's "anything I can afford" (We are all in that boat unfortunately)

Please keep any opinions you have coming in. I'm hoping I'm going to be coming back to this thread as soon as I'm back in the market, with cash in hand!

Sean

Im hearing you John. I do have an awesomly crap van though which can obviously easily carry a 16" dob... or maybe a 18".. or 20"????

God I love aperture....

When you get to my age, a 10" dob is about as much as you can manage.

Good all rounder, nice views of most objects, but not too heavy to move about.

One of the guys in the club has a 14" Flextube, which is a superb scope, but he has to take the rocker box apart to get it into his car, and the eyepiece is too high for me when it is the zenith. We have a breeze block stashed away at Bragan just for me to stand on.

I have a 200p skywatcher dob which i bought of stephen of course and a 4"refractor .
I use the dob about five times as i.d use the refractor its so easy set up thats the beauty of dobs and my daughter finds it easy too.
I.d still like a bigger dob but i think i.d get divorce papers quicker if i said i.m getting a new scope lol.
Val

Ah yes, aperture fever, the only cure involves emptying your bank account. :lol:

but many do say that your best scope is decided as the one you use the most.,
and to paraphrase one of the guys in the club here a number of years ago

"the most fantastic colour corrected 8" flurite triplet apochromat refractor is a superb scope and will show planetary views to knock your socks off, but a simple good 12" dob will more then likely beat it with just about everything else in the sky and cost only a fraction of the cost"

I'm a dob fan and carry mine around in an estate car, its a tight fit but works well. I used to carry around a 12" sct and found it more cumbersome to transport cos the newt has its own set of wheels.

A few years ago I got a nice 6 inch Mak, my thinking was that the optics would be top top notch (and they are) and that it would be a very nice grab and go scope. I remember looking at the orion nebula and thinking the trapezium looks pin sharp, but I cant see all 6 stars and where is the nebula?, it was like I was wearing sunglasses. That's the problem with big aperture, there is no going back, so now the 6" Mak is up for sale.
Pity I didn't heed the advice at the time, would have saved me a few euros.

Thanks again for all your replies guys- it's just a great forum!

Stevie- yeah i can understand all right- my back isn't the best already and i'm only in my mid 30's. But for the love of astronomy, i'm willing to take a bad back for a day. :gramps:

Val- yeah, my wife has a passionate dislike for my two main loves, football and astronomy. Although the view I gave her of Saturn last year had her typing away on Facebook quite quickly after so I think she just feigns her non-interest. But football she really does hate. Anyway, any suggestion of me buying a €2000 scope will be met with the sort of scowl only reserved for my LFC jersey's.

Dave- aperture fever absolutely. But you know something- I was just looking around the internet for MASSIVE dobs and they are just enormous. Like seriously, you couldn't use them unless you had a two up- two down as a holiday home on Mauna Kea!!! Some of them look to be 15 feet high +. That is just not doable - almost anywhere. And can you imagine having to go up to the top of a sizable ladder every time you want to have a look/ just change the eyepiece?

Thanks again for the replies guys. Much appreciated.

Sean