GreyArea10

Hi all I'm new here and after many years of threatening to buy but being put off by cost, I have a rather large birthday coming up and my particularly excellent wife has suggested that now is the time to purchase a scope. We have 3 months so hopefully there is is plenty of time to overcome the current shortages however whilst I have my own opinions on where I might land as regards a scope I thought I'd ask the usual beginners question but in a slightly different way. I guess that this is driven by my other hobby of playing the guitar where on guitar forums there is a groupthink answer to every beginner question (Squier classic vibe and katana amp for those that are interested) which whilst it's a good guitar it's by no means the best and isn't the right answer for everyone. I have noticed a similar although not quite as obvious trend in the threads here where beginners ask and a 200 Dob seems to be the default answer. And so to my question, what scopes would you recommend to a beginner if they were looking to spend £500, £1000, £2000 or £2500? If, and I guess that this is probably a fairly usual position for beginners, solar system visual is the initial starting point but a scope that will cope with DSO visual and possible be okay as a route into imaging it that became of interest in the future. I am well aware that one scope won't do all so the best compromise is what I'm after. The other factor to take into account is that I live in a Bortle 6 area and whilst my back garden is reasonably shielded it's still a city back garden and so transportability to a dark site that is 20-30 minutes from home is probably an necessity. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Sorry for hijacking this a little, I’m new and trying to identify which telescope to go for and had landed on these two as well. I suppose it’s driven by trying to find a scope that is as close to an allrounder as possible. I see everyone here saying no for imaging for these two however they both state faststar as reducing the focal length and f number, why are people disregarding this? I assume there’s a reason I’m not aware of?