They can be nearly the ideal imaging scope, most professional observatories use the RC design.
They aren’t for everyone as they aren’t point and shoot like a refactor would be. I would say the difficulty level just depends on if you like to tinker and what your experience is working with precision mechanical instruments. If you are a DIYer and have some patience to learn the procedure for maintaining the optics then there are two scope designs that are nearly ideal one being the RC and the other being the CDK.
The GSO RC scopes are reasonably affordable and are acceptable quality, other manufacturers are superior in construction, but the cost goes up rapidly, and CDKs are mostly cost prohibitive, comparable to a nice used car or new luxury car. So those are dream scopes for most of us.
The price of an RC can and probably will contain hidden costs for accessories and alignment tools, such and collimation tools and upgraded focusers. If you’re careful with these choices it can be done fairly cheaply.
RC’s typically don’t need any additional optics to correct them and are one of the most pure designs available, all you need is the 2 mirrors to get a well corrected large flat feild. So for astrophotography they are a nearly perfect design and why they are used extensively for big professional science instruments like the Hubble. You don’t need a feild flattener, but you can use a reducer to gain extra speed and widen the feild. So it allows more options than other designs.
The alignment process can be tedious, but it’s not difficult. You need to have a basic understanding of how it works, have a couple tools and most importantly follow the procedure.
I have an RC8 and love it. For me personally it fits better than SCT’s and Newts for a few reasons, such as an image train that hangs on the rear cell not off the side and doesn’t have quirky focus design of the SCT. Basically eliminates most of the hassle you can have with mirror scopes, once it’s aligned. It’s extremely flexible so allows for easy changes to the configuration to do everything from DSO to planetary to spectrograph science instrument.
The cost for my setup was more than double the scope itself though, I got a deal on the tube for around $1000 and invested an additional $1400 (At least) in upgrades and tools. So there’s the hidden cost, overall even with the hidden cost they are still competitive against other designs, at least for the GSO scopes.
I would highly recommend the RC for more advanced imagers, those who have already owned SCT’s and Newts and know their way around the hobby. For beginners or those who want point and shoot simplicity I’d recommend going with a quality refactor and pretty much skip any mirror based scope. You already have one so you’re good.
In your budget range it’s a very hard NOPE! The RC will just destroy your motivation without going all in with it. They aren’t extremely expensive, but you have to be willing to throw time and money at them to correct problems and get it working when necessary.
My advice is save your money for now and keep researching for the future. There basically isn’t a good solution in your price range that won’t (Probably) be just endlessly frustrating with mediocre performance at best. Your mileage may vary.
Edited by Robert7980, 09 October 2024 - 03:24 AM.