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Stuck between a refractor and a Dobsonian for my first real scope
Been using a little 60mm department store scope for a year and finally saved up $600 to upgrade. Narrowed it down to a 4 inch ED doublet refractor or an 8 inch Dobsonian, real tough call. I went with the Dobsonian because aperture wins and I wanted to see deep sky stuff bad... got it set up last week and M13 looked incredible, way better than I hoped. Now I'm wondering if I should have gone with the refractor for sharper planetary views, anyone else wrestle with this choice?
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smith.elliot3d ago
Relax, you can get a refractor later. Both are awesome.
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daniel_cooper343d ago
Used to be all about refractors but yeah, you're right.
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wren2303d ago
Yeah that's pretty much it. I spent a year hunting down a nice 80mm f/5 and then realized I was using it to look at the same 4 bright objects on repeat while my dob sat in the corner. @smith.elliot has the right idea. Get the light bucket first so you can actually see stuff, then pick up a used refractor later when you know what you're actually going to use it for. I still grab my dob 9 times out of 10.
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