My move from refractors to newtonians Generic equipment discussions · Philippe Barraud · ... · 7 · 555 · 0

Corcaroli 2.41
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For many years I have been using refractors for imaging (I could afford it, before retirement !). I finally had to admit that to achieve good results, only high end refractors will do the job, i. e. those using top quality glasses - triplets or more. Naturally, they are very expensive, especially if you want a Pezval type refractor, with four, five or six lenses. And it gets worse if you need a long focal length, which comes with a rather "slow" speed, f/ 5.6, 6.5 or 7.
That is why I am using now only newtonian telescope. In fact they are beautifully simple instruments - a tube, two mirrors -, which means that the light does not have to go through multiple lenses, except for a field flattener. They can be fast, down to f: 2.8, and the collimation with a laser beam is fast and easy, and is usually quite stable for weeks, unless you move the telescope to another place.
The comparison is simple for an astrophotographer who does not have much money: a Pezval refractor with a focale lengh of 1000mm or more will cost over 10'000 euros. The equivalent in the newtonian range will cost between 400 and 1000 euros !
Now I am using three Sky Watcher newtonians and one TS Photon, a 150/f4 in my remote location in Spain, and here at home a 130mm/f5, a Quattro 200mm/f4, and a 200 200mm/f5.
And I am quite happy with them !

Philippe
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trombone76 0.00
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I have done as you as well ; but from a C14 Celestron to a 12 inch dobsonian and really love it. The light gathering is simply amazing and it’s simple and not complex at all..
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apalsikar 0.90
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I have both.  One Skywatcher 150P f/5 Newtonian and one Petzval Refractor Askar SQA55.   Use both on a ZWO AM5N Mount. The Newtonian is a bit bulky and not easy for transport whereas the Refractor is very handy and portable.  For visual astronomy, I have found the Newtonian better.  For Astrophotography both are good and while each has some issue or other, agree with the observations given above
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p0laris 0.00
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I started astrophotography with a small 70mm refractor, and quickly upgraded to a 5" newtonian in order to have a bit more aperture. I recently upgraded to a 10" F/4.8 newtonian. It's an amazing scope for the money, and I use it for both visual and astrophotography - it's bulky but I can carry and put it on my mount myself, the setup and collimation takes less than 10 minutes. I use an Ocal for the collimation process, which has been working flawlessly so far. Collimation usually holds very well for a few weeks, even if I move the scope around from the garden to the shed.
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Morian 0.00
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I started this hobby 8 years ago and have 3 setups
1: Skywatcher Esperite 80/400
2: Samyang 70/135mm
And the third one is recently purchased TS-ONTC6F5/F3.65 Newton Scope and this is a beast.
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velociraptor1 2.71
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I currently have GSO 8 inch F4 as my main telescope.

Also have GSO 6 inch RC which I used for Planets and Lunar imaging.

For wide-field I use Double Refractor Sharpstar 60mm F5.5

with iOptron iEQ45-Pro mount.

So far results of GSO 8 inch F4 are nice.
I can easily image Galaxies upto 12 Mag from Bortle 7 city sky.

Use ZWO ASI 585MC and ZWO ASI 1600MMPro cameras.
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3.10
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(deleted)
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nToneoAB 0.00
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Hi Philippe,
I have a newtonian carbon comet hunter  730/152 and I use it  with a small field of view osc and without filler wheel just  a filter drawer and a TOA 130NS which is convenient to setup and move from inside to outside every night as it takes also less time to acclimatize but I like them both smile
cheers
Antonio
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