I saw a nice folded refractor at RTMC a few years back, it did preform reasonably well.
It seems a Newtonian with mirror low to the ground is inherently more stable than a folded refractor in that the balance point will always be high above the ground. People have forgotten the folded refractor, unfortunately. It's such a
viable approach, especially considering modern enhanced-reflectivity coatings. Combining a large APO with a 2-mirror fold would yield a very portable, easily-mounted telescope, handling in practice much like a Newtonian.
On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 8:51 AM, <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
8' is plenty big, my experience with big long refractors is one of "shaky images", the f7 refractors Roland makes are well mounted as well. Many of the "spotlight prints" are photographed using his refractors.
Big refractors are only practical when mounted in an observatory like the Andy out at SPOC.
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