On Aug 25, 8:01*am, Chris L Peterson wrote:

So the fact that using better equipment (which is, unsurprisingly,
more expensive) allows imagers to produce better images introduces
some sort of "class system"? You have a bizarre view of reality.

I object to t;he terminology as well. After all, the 200-inch
telescope on Mount Palomar cost a lot of money. Of course imagers as
well as telescopes are expensive.

For deep sky observing, you want large apertures and long exposures,
and that latter desideratum lets out a Dobsonian.

So something like even a 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain, a CCD from SBIG...
the fact that there are now some professional SLR cameras that are
better for astronomical use and which cost a lot of money seems to me
not to have changed this.

And for deep sky instead of planetary photography... well, of course
it's a rich man's game! You have to own a *car* to do that sort of
thing, if nothing else. To get to where the dark skies are.

John Savard