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Had to pick between a 6 inch dob and a 4 inch refractor last month
I was set on getting a telescope for my backyard here in Portland, and I had it narrowed down to two options. The 6 inch Dobsonian was cheaper at like $250, but it's this big tube you gotta haul outside every time. The 4 inch refractor was $400 but way lighter and easier to set up. I went with the dob because everyone said it shows more detail on deep sky stuff, especially Orion Nebula and galaxies. First night I used it, I spent 45 minutes just trying to find Andromeda and gave up frustrated cause the finder scope was misaligned. But once I collimated it and actually got Andromeda in view, holy crap it was worth it. Has anyone else regretted a scope choice cause of setup time vs what you can actually see?
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jessefoster1d ago
Picked up a used 4 inch refractor last year and honestly the portability makes me use it way more than I thought I would. I can just grab it and pop it on my balcony in like 2 minutes, while my buddy with his dob spends 15 minutes hauling it out and setting up. He gets better views of galaxies and clusters though, so it's a trade off. The trick I found is just keeping my finder scope aligned perfectly and using a telrad instead of the stock one, cuts down setup frustration big time.
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