smaller is better?

Here's a new twist...after 5 years of stargazing, I realized that I get a bigger kick out of my smaller aperture telescopes! I have been rebuilding a 60mm f/15 Meade telescope for my young daughters, and I find myself going to extraordinary lengths to make that sucker perform! For example, Black velvet lining the entire inside tube, rebuilding the focuser 3 times, hogging out the focuser holes until a laser collimator comes out of the middle of the lens cell, turning over my prized vintage Meade RG and Celestron Ortho eyepieces so my daughters can get the max clairity, It's become an obsession! I now get more satisfaction out of seeing 4 components in the Trap with the "60", than I do finding the e and f components with my 8-inch Dob! My ETX-90 is fast becoming my favorite telescope!
I can really see where the 4-inch APO crowd is coming from now, when they say they are immune to aperture fever!
Maybe it's a labor of love for my daughters, but sometimes finding EVERYTHING you point your telescope to can get old... Chris Brown

Indeed Chris and 4 stars in the Trapezium - that's superb! There is much to see even with only 60mm if the optics is good. I've been reading an excellent book on the history of Saturn and it's amazing how many discoveries were made with relatively small apertures (and with early optics that were no match for ours ;-). In the final analysis, it's that which challenges the small scope users that bring a different sort of joy to the hobby.

Enjoy your oldie new scope ;-).

Ron the 4-inch Tall Evangelist B[ee]
PS - Smaller is still satisfying for me.

>>Maybe it's a labor of love for my daughters, but sometimes finding EVERYTHING you point your telescope to can get old... Chris Brown

The nice thing about smaller scopes is that those difficult to see objects are easier to find, especially since you have already found them with a larger scope. It is refreshing to take a break and just enjoy the simple views. I think this is one of the reasons the ST-80 style scopes are so popular, they provide reasonable views and it is fun to see objects from a different perspective. Viewing M93 or M11 with a small scope is quite different asthetically than with a big scope, those faint barely visable pin-pricks of light are a pleasure to behold.

But no matter what scope you are using, there are always plenty of targets that are just within reach, whether it is a 60mm refractor or a 24 inch DOB. With a larger scope, it takes more skill to find and identify those targets because they are smaller and there are many more of them.

But the plus side of a larger scope is that there are many more of them and while M11 and M93 might be less than subtle, there are plenty of targets that are just as beautiful and exhibit those same pinpoint stars, they are just not visable at all in a small scope.

Personally I think one needs a range of scopes to see and enjoy the night time sky. Larger and small, short and long..

jon isaacs