My experience from this past Spring in Colorado actually made me think
about this very issue. Why? Well most seasons have easy-to-view
objects, but Spring tends to be loaded with 'faint fuzzies.' I could
locate many of these Messier objects, but little or no detail was
visible in my 6" Newtonian. Those same objects in my friend's 12" SCT
looked amazing, especially the globulars. This 'finding' of mine,
dovetails nicely with the aperture sizes that sell in volume, but are
still portable, i.e., those in the 8-12" range.

Kirk



What in your opinion or experience is the minimum aperture necessary
for satisfying views of globular clusters and galaxies?
Thanks,
Bill Meyers