essentialblend

I definitely hear you! Even knowing close to nothing about these scopes, I could definitely imagine this portability problem. No point buying something that I CBA to put in the effort to take out / stays in my closet. I "think" I'm motivated enough to put in that effort, but I need to consider this factor. My question was more along the "what do you peeps usually do". Are most of you transporting your dobs in cars, finding a clear view on the regular? Can't I simply pack and carry it walking personally? (this is where I was confused as well, because I didn't find carry bags (only found covers) of any kind. So I don't even know, okay I disassemble the tube and the stand, how am I to carry this walking? Especially if its an 8". Would you also advise against something like a heritage 150p? That felt quite small and portable to me. I originally settled on dobs/newtonians because of my interest in DSO's. From what little I read, if I simply cared about the moon or planets, I'd be happier and chilled out with a refractor, but unfortunately I'm on the other end of this spectrum, and already feel aperture fever in that sense. Since it's a chunk of my savings, it doesn't make sense to me to spend 150-250 quid when I could simply spend a 100 more and reach the sweet spot with an 8" dob. I just don't know how I'm supposed to use it on the daily.

Hi all! Hope you're all keeping well. I quite(!) recently got into astronomy and was doing some research on picking a scope. While I felt I had some options nailed down, which I'll mention below, I felt confused about its day-to-day usage. I'm a fresh post graduate, living in either a 1 bed flat, or ensuite rooms, based out of Nottingham. I do not have a car. Now, considering my finances, I came upon two basic tracks. 1) Play it safe around the 100-150 quid, go for something like a heritage ~100p and call it a day. No money issues, no portability issues. 2) Invest the money, possibly go for 150/200mm dobs, and use it forever. Anything more than that just intuitively feels impractical considering my situation. Now my confusion lies here, say I invested the money and got a 8" dob. How am I supposed to use it on the reg? Am I to carry it (walking or public transit in my case) to spots and use it? If I have a window, can I just accept the FOV limit and enjoy what I can see from my flat window? Will I be able to (with the reasonable size/carry effort) easily transport it to places by myself? This is where my main confusion lies. If the idea is that I need to carry my scope a lot, find remote places etc, I'm unsure about the practicality of a 8", as I don't have a car (accounting for the worst case scenario that I might not have good views where I live and maybe need to transport a bit). In this case, something like a Heritage 100 or 150p seems like a no-brainer. If ^ that is normal, and it's convenient to do so, then I imagine going out of the way to invest in one good 8". Please do help me with this as I don't have any astronomer friends to ask, neither can I easily imagine how I'd be using it, which is making my decision hard. Granted I could order and return in 30 days etc, but that's not what I'm relying on apart from a last resort measure. Kind regards, Sid