After being a serious “visual” observer for ~40 years and having had more than 12 telescopes, I’ve come to the conclusion:  A 6-inch f/6 Newtonian just might just be the perfect amateur telescope. It offers enough aperture to see hundreds and hundreds of deep-sky objects and with reasonable portability. The 6-inch also offers more than twice the light gathering capability of a 4-inch refractor, and at signitifcantly less cost.

I had a 6-inch Criterion RV-6 almost 50 years ago, but life got busy and sold it. However, I have always regretted selling that telescope. So, in 2018, I bought another 6-inch, but this time with an f/6 focal ratio. The Criterion RV-6 was an f/8. I like the f/6 much better as the optical tube is not as long, and the shorter focal length allows for lower magnifications and wider fields of view.

I also have a 4.5-inch f/8 Newtonian that was given to me last year (March 2025) by a friend. I like this telescope as when using, it reminds me of my 4.25-inch f/10 EQ Edmund reflector. This was my first “very own” telescope, which opened the world of (serious) amateur astronomy to me in the spring of 1977. And I’ll never forget that spring night in 1977 when I first saw galaxies M81 and 82 with this telescope. My notes read: “In my mind, I was now a real amateur astronomer.”

For use with a more portable and transportable mount I use a Vixen GP, which is lightweight, but very sturdy.

This entry was posted on April 26, 2025 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.