essentialblend

This article is gold! Thanks for sharing. Still going through it.

If I was in a position where I knew I could simply upgrade later at will on command, I'd be much much more comfortable with the beginner 60-70mm frac. I just don't want to get something and then feel any aperture regret, although I saw a bunch of representation images and have some faint idea of what to expect. Even with this 150p + stuff, I'm running close to 400 quid. 350 if I remove the barlow. Too much if it doesn't get used and is making me consider an open box 130.

It's even cheaper if available open box, absolute steal. Completely alleviates my tension on the spot. Just dealing with ap-fever on this one and unable to fully convince myself against the 150p because I feel I'm kind of spending a lot of money either way. I'm waiting, lets see if I stumble upon good deals.

Thank you so much! 130p looks so much more manageable than I'd presumed. I'm not considering binos right now sadly. And yet to conclusively figure out the "where" and "how" of it's day to day usage sadly so I don't even know if I'll have any table (or chair hah) available. Lots of haze unfortunately.

The only things I was comparing for was aperture per mm, and portability. Funnily enough Tiny Clang told me the same thing, and I get it, I could make this far more expressive and count in every non-trivial factor. The "ease of use / setup" effectively depends on the portability, or so I abstracted it out. All I have done on my end is self-assign one worst case portability metric, is all. No other subjective assessments. Regarding refractors, I thought a bunch, and simply eliminated it for my first scope. These are just comparing the 100-200 'flecs I came across online. I felt my conservative portability score is at least fair. I'm not doing a quirk-per-quirk totality comparison between these products, it's just getting some more data to better make a decision as I gather the money. I just wanted to know from those two angles, what serves well, and the ratings are almost what I intuitively imagined (i.e 100/130p being better portable and aperture per mm than a 150p), which reflects in the score, or so I thought. Here's my latest. The only easy hole in this I see is, it doesn't account for the "wow" factor of those big dobs, so regardless of how I prioritize the weights without extremes, the big ones probably get rated low.

Some data for fellow math peeps, if it helps anyone else. I calculate aperture per quid using data, then assign a worst case portability score (of 3, higher is more portable) based on the advice I got here + what I can assess. Then I normalize them, assign weights, some basic math later, we get a final score. I'm going to buy some base accessories/upgrades regardless, so I didn't want them to influence the core value proposition. It'd be fun to hear if people agree (or disagree) with these scores (considering the weights).

I can always look at something and pretend it was Jupiter.

Thanks to all of you! I definitely invaluably appreciate all the time, help, and all the first-hand experiences. I'll do my best to wait this stretch out, and also take the opportunity to try and find a home that better aligns with this hobby as well, as someone that's seen many people pick up and drop hobbies, especially instruments in my case, I can definitely imagine the portability hurting if not ruining the entire experience. I can always return it if it's absurdly problematic, but I'd rather not. I gotta wait 7-8 days either way. I'll triple it and delay gratification. It also gives me a chance to attempt and gather some more money, in case something better comes out in the way of new products or open box deals. I still yet don't have access to the buy-sell lounge here. I'll try and look up more on refractors, and see if I have a more portable option with the least aperture sacrifice. I only looked up newts/dobs. On a side note, what are the better places in the UK from a minimizing transit perspective (like from a Bortle zone perspective?). As of now, I'm looking between Nott, Le, Derby, Sheffield, and the likes. I understand just based off of intuition that most of these at best will be B5-6 zone especially the closer I go towards the concentration points, are there any "avoid at all costs" areas?

Yep, will definitely try my best to attend the Nott soc meeting.

I just checked these threads. No opinion on these yet. Also, regarding your question. That's the main issue as of now. Where I am till Feb end, is an amazing spot with a proper front yard clean area etc at the worst case. Ideally, I should simply postpone this decision till atleast I confirm where I'll be staying in March, so I know what's feasible for the mid-term to begin with. I'm simply not sure I'll be able to wait "that" long, but I'm trying to convince myself to at least wait till March, or till I get a good deal. I agree with your concern, ideally I should be waiting longer than I am planning currently.

I accounted for the eye-pieces, I'm not fully sure on the finder scope or collimation tools. I thought I'd check it out and if something feels off, maybe try some collimation tool, but I'm not at all sure about this. As of now, the dob + eyepiece + barlow + microfibre lens cloth is setting me back around 310 quid (all new, unless I find some deal here in the coming days). This 150p seems about 7.5-8kg on the OTA. I'm also considering Peter's advice, albeit not sure if I can wait that long, off a cursory search, I don't know if something new / substantially better is going to be out at that time. If so, I have more incentive to wait.

Extremely tempting. I could also gather a good chunk if something better comes out by that time, no idea if that's the case. Thank you so much for sharing.

I'm mostly not going to do that, if I were being utterly honest. I'll do my best in assessing, and rely on a return in the worst case where reality turns out completely opposite to whatever I gathered, but that's the only place I'm considering a return. I also think the Notts soc has a meeting in the coming days, will definitely attend that to see if I can get to see one of these in person. If anyone's going, please do let me know. EDIT - I'm in no hurry to pull the trigger, I gotta wait around a week anyway.

Thank you so much for chiming in! Here's where my logic is clashing. If I take convenience as the primary measure, something around a 100-130p max, is a no-brainer purchase if I'm sticking with dobs. Now from being in the ball-park range in spending anyway, I feel if I'm going for 130, might as well max it out at 150 and try to manage carrying it around for shorter distances in the near-term. That's where my confusion is, as I've never used one first hand, or have immediate access, it's hard for me without that information bit, to confidently settle on one. But for now I'm thinking 150p and calling it a day. EDIT - I also understand the value in picking a smaller scope to begin with, as it stays with you as a grab-n-go option, and then picking a better bigger scope for a next purchase. The only issue is, say I stick with ~130p, I'm as is spending ~200 quid anyway. 100p, I probably save 50 quid more. For this amount of money when it's not "fully" disposable, I'm trying to account for each and every quid with regards to aperture, causing further haze in what should be a relatively easier decision. If I found out that even a 150p, I couldn't carry around walking a bit, then I'll either call it a day on a 130p, or just max it out and call it a day with 100p/equivalent 'frac. This is what I'm thinking for now.

Thanks for sharing! Indispensable read (I read it a day or so ago), and also helped me align and better appreciate what I was seeing. Just for posterity, I didn't think I'd see Hubble type images or something, but one mis-expectation I did have which quickly got corrected, was that I'd see more DSO stuff in colour.