Dazzyt66

Great advice on the start post and I do tend to agree about the ease of a Mak (obvs as my main scope is now a 150 Mak!). To add a bit of further balance, my first scope was a Celestron 'First Scope' a mini Dob brand new for £50. This did the trick for me as the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Mars were all visible through it (with pretty rubbish stock eps) and made me want more. I then went to a 150 Dob and although it was good it is not as good (in my opinion) as the 150 Mak. Granted, my Mak is on a GOTO mount which makes it FANTASTICALLY easy to find stuff, but the views I have had through the Mak of the planets have been awesome and has even got me looking at DSOs - something I found not so easy with my Dob.

So, I would concur that a 127 Mak would make a great starter setup but equally you wouldn't need to spend even that amount to get the bug - a decent set of bins would also do the trick - I certainly agree that jumping straight to a 200mm Dob may not be the wisest choice for a total noob.

As loads of people will say: the best scope is the one you use the most. On that measure my 'best' scope is my ST80 as I use that even on holiday abroad and can set it up in minutes...