eclenic

Alas, I’m quite a small woman with a bad back so no ‘man-up juice’, as you put it, to be had. The Dob on its base weighs about 25kg and is the size and shape of a water heater, I can just barely lift it and move it about by myself. A Nexstar 8SE by contrast appears to weigh slightly more than half that weight fully assembled? If it’s bulky but light, or heavy but not bulky, I’ll be fine, it’s the combination that’s kept my scope in the garage for all this time. The AP is something I’m more looking to try and see if I enjoy it before investing in proper kit for it. Better views is obviously relative, what I really mean by that is I don’t want worse visual performance for the kind of money I’m willing to put down - so I’m not really interested in anything below a 6” aperture, and ideally I’d like to stay at at least 8”. The forum has given me plenty to chew on at least going forward though!

Thanks all for the replies! I'm 100% set on getting rid of the Dob at this point, but this gives me plenty to think about At the moment I am leaning towards the SCT on an EQ mount, but the CC is a very interesting option as well! Then to decide on a size...

Hi all, thanks in advance for your help! I've owned a Skywatcher 200p Dobsonian for the past few years, and got some really nice views out of it. But overall I've never really got along with it, it's simply too big/heavy/awkward for me to comfortably move around and as such has spent most of its life in the garage instead of observing! I'm getting back into the hobby lately and am looking for something I can replace it with, but I'm having trouble deciding what to go with. Requirements Mainly visual observing, with the plan to do some casual AP Good views of both planets and DSOs Reasonably easy to move and carry, ideally in one piece GOTO/tracking is essential Don't mind buying the OTA and mount separately if necessary For the amount of money I know I'm going to need to spend on a setup like this, I'd like better views than I can currently get through my Dob I've been looking at a variety of options - I was initially just considering another Newtonian on an EQ mount, but I have weight and practicality issues with that setup. So I think I'm looking at probably something like either an 8" (or bigger) SCT or a 6" Maksutov, but I don't have a great feel for these in terms of what aperture sizes are comparable, the kind of views possible, or if there's something else I should be considering entirely, like a refractor. I'm just a little lost. Any advice for me would be great!