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I don’t do astrophotography myself, but, I do appreciate the efforts of those who do. I prefer that the light from that galaxy 50 million light years away that goes into my scope actually hit my eye, not, not a CCD camera. Makes it a little more special to me.

I understand, but when I'm AP imaging, I'm watching/monitoring my targets on computer screens inside the observatory or remotely. I see what the telescope/camera is seeing real time, prior to taking the exposures. Live view is simply shown on the monitor and I get a much bigger field of view with the monitors than through an eyepiece.

In addition, as you no doubt are aware, our eyes are no where near as sensitive as what the camera is capable of seeing. Thanks to the camera, it brings out the data and detail far beyond what human eyes can ever see.

However, I agree with you when if comes to close objects that don't require long exposures, such as direct lunar viewing through the eyepiece. It's like being in a spacecraft looking out the windows while cruising over mountains and craters.☺

“In addition, as you no doubt are aware, our eyes are no where near as sensitive as what the camera is capable of seeing.”

That’s why aperture is everything. I have a 12.5 dob, and I can see some really faint stuff 12th to 14th mag., but, I have a buddy that has a 22in Obsession. You can see dimmer, and, much more detail in his scope.

We observe in Coastal Georgia, and, last fall a group from my club was invited to go do some observing with Al Nagler while he was visiting nearby. We ended up out on a pier in a river and only had room for the 22 dob. Al pulled out a night vision monocular (white light) that he had been helping develop. It had attachments so you could hook it up to a scope using his lenses, and, so we did along with an OIII filter. We took a look at M8 and had a great deal of time finding the edges of the nebula. Each of us took a turn looking and we would just move the scope around until we found what we thought was the edge. The Veil was spectacular, and, if you just looked through the monocular, you got a 1x view of the Milky Way that was wonderful.

Then we put the OIII filter on at 1x. ALL those gas clouds that are in the Milky Way in Cygnus and Cepheus popped out like an ice crystal. They looked like clouds, but, didn’t move.

It was a fun evening!