HEEELLLPPP...LOL

[DOBBY]

My vote goes with the 8" Dob... which can always be mounted at a later date onto an equatorial mount with Go-To facility... also you get the.. ' look what i found dad ' factor with a dob, rather than what did the computer find ? just my experience of kids..

[garethmob]

welcome to SGL

the advice above is really fantastic for you and your son, iv gone the alt az, a EQ mount (goto) and iv just gt a new scope to convert to a DOB. to keep your son interested in the hobby it may be better to have a computerised scope as with todays light polluted skys finding objects manually can be frustrating at times,

perhaps one of these

First Light Optics - Skywatcher Startravel 102 SynScan AZ GOTO

its a 4" scope thats computer controlled and would help massivly to keep your sons attention span focused i was his age when i had my first a meade ETX 70 which was computerised

another possiability is this one

First Light Optics - Celestron NexStar 130 SLT

its 5" so slightly bigger than the other one i mentioned and its on a slightly stirdy mount (even though celestron and skywatcher are the same company celestrons are more beefier) the scope though would need calibrating (collinating) every so often just to get it to fine focus

both scopes could be used with a webcam to take pictures of the moon or planets

u can see a few DSO's with the 2 scopes as well

stelleriarium is a fantastic piece of software (and the 2 above scopes with the correct cable can be attached to a computer as well)

gaz