TV-76/TV-85 vs. 6" Reflector w/Royce MirrorPosted By Larry Thaxton |
Hi Joe,
I live at the beach and enjoy "grab and go" lunar and planetary viewing from my deck. Over the last few years I have gone through several scopes trying to get the right combination of performance and ease of use. My most recent refractor was a Televue 85 on a Gibralter mount which gave wonderful views. But, much as I liked it, my old 6" Dynascope outperformed it and was just as easy to carry out and set up. So I sold the TV85. The UTI-6 looks like a fabulous scope and is far more compact than the Dynascope. Under good conditions a 6" scope easily puts away any 3" scope, even highly touted APOs ( I have owned Pentax, Takahashi, Showa and TV APOs in the 3" to 4" range) but the reflector will require collimation now and then and is more sensitive to cool-down and seeing.
As an aside, a few months ago we had a spell of really good seeing and I squeezed my Takahashi FS-152 along side the 6" reflector and TV 85 to view Jupiter. Both of the 6" scopes beat the TV 85 in terms of detail and image brightness. The 152 was clearly better but the old reflector put up a really good image. Better contrast and lack of diffraction (and superb Takahashi optics) gave the large refractor the win. But the Dynascope was a one-trip set up and cost 1/25th what the Tak did.
I live at the beach and enjoy "grab and go" lunar and planetary viewing from my deck. Over the last few years I have gone through several scopes trying to get the right combination of performance and ease of use. My most recent refractor was a Televue 85 on a Gibralter mount which gave wonderful views. But, much as I liked it, my old 6" Dynascope outperformed it and was just as easy to carry out and set up. So I sold the TV85. The UTI-6 looks like a fabulous scope and is far more compact than the Dynascope. Under good conditions a 6" scope easily puts away any 3" scope, even highly touted APOs ( I have owned Pentax, Takahashi, Showa and TV APOs in the 3" to 4" range) but the reflector will require collimation now and then and is more sensitive to cool-down and seeing.
As an aside, a few months ago we had a spell of really good seeing and I squeezed my Takahashi FS-152 along side the 6" reflector and TV 85 to view Jupiter. Both of the 6" scopes beat the TV 85 in terms of detail and image brightness. The 152 was clearly better but the old reflector put up a really good image. Better contrast and lack of diffraction (and superb Takahashi optics) gave the large refractor the win. But the Dynascope was a one-trip set up and cost 1/25th what the Tak did.