Choosing One Telescope for Everything! 

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I bought a 6 inch reflector last year and I love it. I am very happy to hear that this is your recommendation. :-)

One telescope is sacrilege a true astronomer has a shed full of unused telescopes.

For my budget, I WAS planning on buying an 8" newtonian on a dobsonian mount but after watching this video I will instead buy a 6" newtonian on an equatorial mount! And the 6" with the mount is only about $50 more! And you are right, it would be a great all around scope and could still do decent photog as well. Thank you friend from the UK for this very helpful video. - David from Texas

I completely agree, but for personal reasons I very deliberately picked a 5" ED triplet instead of a 4". On an EQ6 (and using a top of the range camping cart soft luggage, and carry case) it is just at the limit of portability and gives a bit more than 50% extra light. Setup (for photography) takes an hour. If visual 45mins and that might mean 15 minutes of settling cooling. I don't regret anything but I DO recognize it is past the sweet spot for convenience and every night use. One day soon I'll retire to the country and have a run-off shed!

Chris, super duper, you've answered my question I posted earlier on one of your other videos, it's a 4" ed f7 for me, it's time to save a bit more me thinks but it's definitely what I want, ta very much :)

Great Vid Chris, I have taken your sage advice and added a 4" F7 ED refractor to my collection!

I bought the 6" inch C6-N and decided to have the mirrors recoated at 96% reflectivity and they did a free test of my mirror and long story short refigured the primary to .986 Strehl and zero .01mm knife test, less that .080 wave. Takahashi quality for $500 including the used telescope. Guys with 8" scopes say mine is as good as theirs. I think it is sharper up to 250x which is all I take it too. Mostly where I go, Bortle 2 I find 200 max, but sometimes 250x is good if the stratosphere is calm. I ended up putting a Crayford focuser on it.

Hi Chris. Interesting choices you spoke about! For me I'd need fairly portable telescopes that aren't heavy and can be carried to where I go as it's a good quiet area and has good views without buildings or trees getting in way. Only problem is the light pollution. I forgot to mention last year I bought the Bnise 70mm focal length 400mm telescope and it's pretty small and light weight and comes with phone adaptor to attach telescope and phone for astrophotography with phone. Telescope cost 95 pound in amazon. Telescope comes with a small pair of binoculars which are ok. Finder scope is very good as it's clear and sharp. Telescope itself gives nice views of moon and deep sky objects so I'm going to use it to try photograph the bright deep sky object's since I got the skywatcher star adventurer. This little scope I fear would break easy if put in backpack when I go camping in highlands of Scotland once things get back to normal. I'd like telescope where it's fairly easy to carry and for deep sky objects to photograph. A telescope that I can photograph the horse head nebula and M16 the eagle nebula. Some astronomers have even got shots of M16 showing the famous Hubble image of pillars of creation. Those shots show the pillars a small area. I want to in next few years to photograph them. What scope would you recommend? A telescope for travel and a telescope for local area.

So knowledgeable, thank you for this info.

Excellent! Very informative and useful. Thank you!

A 6-inch Maksutov-Newtonian solves the problem of diffraction spikes with basically the same aperture and speed as your budget pick. Yes, it does cost more, but it might be worth it.

I have a SW Quattro with the 0.85x coma corrector. I really like it, however I wish I had imported to the US the SW 130P DS with the 0.9x reducer. (Why isn't that great scope sold here?!) My favorite scope is my Orion Starblast 4.5.. my most used scope is an Astrotech AT80EDT with 0.8x with a ASI533MM. If I had to do it over again, I'd get the Skywatcher 130p with the 0.9x CC.

I think this topic is tedious. Depends on many things (e. g. stationary/travel, available space, budget ...) therefore there is no single answer possible, other said: All telescopes have their purpose. I would suggest a video where you explain the pros and cons of all telescope types

8" Dob

Great video, thanks! Of the budget choice, do you have specific models you could share that you rate please? Thank you

hi can you explain what the ED means in your recommendation for a 4 inch refrator telescope.

For me the 130mm is just right especially if ur starting out there not much money and lets be honest there really isn't much between a 130 and a 150mm and by the time uv got a tracking motor and eq mount is getting on to be 100% more expensive and only 1% better, and with the money saved spend it on eyepieces and other bits because the scope is just the beginning 😬🤣 telescopes r like bikes or hifis when u get to a point u need a lot more money to get a very small gains we all get court up in the amazing photos, that get taken from gardens but it looks very different in the eyepiece and no matter how big and powerful ur telescope is its still got to look through the atmosphere 🤷‍♂️ 👍

If a 4in is good on planets I would bet a 6 inch apo refractor would be great on planets.

Would you recommend an achromatic 4 inch refractor f6?