ptrduffy

Further thanks to @Ricochet and @Jules Tohpipi for your detailed responses - you both raise some interesting points. I'm now fairly certain that the 8" Dob is not going to work for us. The primary issue is that I think we will need to regularly go further afield than the back garden due to visibility from there (thanks to @Ricochet for making me think about this). Basically, we are at a corner position of two blocks of 4-storey tenements, around 17-20m high. Due South we are not obstructed by buildings for about 150m; North and East we have buildings within 10m of any viewing point in our back garden; and West we have additional buildings around 20m away. So South and SW are the only directions where we have reasonably unoibstructed viewing, and even then there are numerous trees around. So, I think we need something that is relatively easy to transport both by hand to nearby parks (a good number of open spaces within a 10-minute walk) and by car to darker skies (Glasgow University has an observatory site a 20-minute drive away, and I gather a local astronomy club has monthly meet-ups there). So, I'm now going back into research mode with a better idea of what the priorities are - and I do like @Jules Tohpipi's idea of a GoTo mount that could potentially have an imaging device added at a later date.

Thanks for all the responses so far - everyone seems to be leaning towards the 8" Dob, which is kind of what I expected. I think I need to find somewhere nearby to have a look at just how big and heavy this will be. In the meantime, if I was to go with the 8" Starsense, it has a focal length of 1200mm - should I be looking to add a 6mm eyepiece to get 200x magnification for planetary viewing?

Hi all, I have been lurking for a while, and reading as much as I can, and now have some questions about getting started with observing. I am asking for some help in choosing between a few options that I have narrowed down so far. Background: I did a bit of observing many years ago, when I lived in Northern California after being gifted a 70mm Meade (I think) refractor with a GoTo. The experience was at best okay - finding objects was reasonably easy, but images were not great, and the system was very flimsy (susceptible to wobbles and knocks). Fast forward 20+ years and my 16yo daughter has been expressing an interest for a while now in astronomy, and is thinking of pursuing a degree in Physics with Astronomy. She is interested in a telescope for Christmas. I would like to get something that makes it easy to find objects, but is more robust and provides better viewing than my previous experience. I know that most responses to this type of query start with "what do you want to view" - but it's difficult to answer this question until you have some idea of what is possible. If we could get good planetary views, by which I mean see Saturn's rings or Jupiter's cloud bands, then I would be happy with that. If we would be better going for views of DSOs, then I'd be equally happy with that, just not sure until we know what we know. Constraints: Budget is around £500 - could go a bit higher, would prefer not to. We now live back in Glasgow (Scotland) which obviously has more viewing challenges than California (weather and light pollution). We are in a ground floor flat with limited storage space, and a shared back garden - but there are numerous parks nearby and I have a car if we need/want to travel to better viewing locations. This does put a bit of an emphasis on size and portability. We also regularly visit family in the rural west of Ireland, which offers more viewing options, but would require the telescope to fit in a family car alongside luggage. My thoughts so far: A Dobsonian reflector seems to be the general recommendation for stability, ease of use and light-gathering The Celestron Starsense Explorer range seems to offer a good balance between electronic support and ability to go completely manual The Skywatcher GTi range also offers automatic GoTo, with the added option of tracking, and the ability to go manual (if I understand it correctly) My current list of options: I was initially sorely tempted by the Celestron Starsense Explorer 8". It's a bit beyond my preferred budget, but I could stretch. I was then looking at the same brand 6" tabletop And then I was looking at the Skywatcher Heritage 150P GTi My questions (or at least some of them!): Is the 8" to bulky to store and move easily? I'm finding it difficult to visualise how much space it would take up in the flat and in the car. Regarding both of the 6" scopes, I would need to sit them on a table or similar, which presumably needs to be fairly solid and level or we lose the benefit of the Dobsonian mount? From what I've been reading I would need 200x magnification to get the planetary views I would like. I think all of the above scopes are capable of this with additional eyepieces. The 8" has a much longer focal length than the 6"s (1200mm vs 750mm), meaning I could get this with 5mm eyepieces vs 3mm - does this have any impact in real-world viewing? (I've read that about 200x is the best that I can expect in UK skies anyway). Related to the above, if I was viewing a planet at 200x how quickly would an object move through the field of view on thes scopes? And how possible is it to keep up with that without automatic tracking? The 6" Skywatcher is the most compact and portable. I would be quite happy making a shroud for it, but I notice its focuser also gets a lot of criticism - is this just because it relies on a screw mechanism which takes more effort/time to focus? What am I not thinking about that I should be? Thanks to all contributors for what I've read here to date, and I'll try to reciprocate with updates on whatever we evebtually go for