Greg: You're not being silly at all, I'd personally hate to climb a tall ladder in the dark! And going with a huge Cassegrain will put tremendous demands on the mount- suddenly it's a trailer-mounted beast, and if going Dobsonian on the mount, good luck lifting into the rocker-box alone! Clyde Bone has addressed the problem of huge apertures & moderate f/ratios in portable instruments without altitude sickness. See his article in S&T of some years ago. Pricey, if going with commercial instruments (you need a TV refractor AND a big Dob), but I think it can be done much more ecconomically by the sly ATM. Relay lenses & Naysmith foci, convex secondaries, the sky is the limit if we don't slavishly build clones of the typical Dob. Loved your remarks; heck, I need the oxygen just driving to the observing site! C. --- Greg Taylor <astronomus_maximus@yahoo.com> wrote:
I know, just being silly.
Greg
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