Refractor or Reflector???

[Chris H]

However I've seen videos of people who use really big dobs through their skylight, and from what it seems they have their scope permanently set up in that room.

Are you sure this wasn't an observatory?

[Luke]

I would go for the reflector hands down as a general observing scope!

The larger the aperture of the scope, the more light it lets in from the object you are looking at so the brighter that object is.

A lot of the deep sky objects are very faint, so the more light your scope lets in the easier it is to see the object!

8 inches is a really nice aperture as it should let you see many deep sky objects, many more than say a 4 inch refractor which probably costs more.

When it comes to planets though, they are much brighter than the faint deep sky objects so here the aperture doesn't matter as much (though I believe if the seeing is good enough, more aperture can give you more detail), so a smaller refractor in general does better on planets than it does on faint deep sky objects.

Small refractors do have some advantages such as they don't usually need to be collimated and they are of course easier to lug around and store than a big dob.

If I was starting out again, I would go for the 200P. It's amazing value for money, it has enough aperture to give you a huge range of things to look at, and it is very easy to set up and use!