Brand New - Which Telescope?

[Lowenbrau]

I'll be STRONGLY against goto system for you.

My first, borrowed scope was 60mm, with plastic lens, some no name Rubbish, worse than Tasco are today. But it hooked me, I saw fascinating stuff with it including many Messier objects and what is the most important - I learned the sky, hopping and trained my eye. All three things are very important any you shouldn't be skipping it. And it was just using a sky map, without internet, without any help from anyone, as it was before I joined local club. If somebody will just point you to show several constellations you'll get the sky in few nights. You'll just be waiting for new constellations to emerge from the east. Also, sky hopping is something that is not hard at all but it is crucial even in GoTo, which is needed to be perfectly set up to work. If you'll hook to faint deep-sky hoping is again needed as sometimes maps are not precise enought. OK, with sky surveys today it's not important, but still...

Eye training is most important of all, you need to know how to look. You can't do that by reading. I have worked with people in an observatory and views on Saturn through 16" SCT at 300x at great seeing range from: "Wow, amazing" to "Nah, this is so small and crappy". Sure, for last group of people it is the wrong hobby, but even the first people can be easily driven away with fainter objects, like galaxies, where a trained eye can really see much more.

Take something portable, like 8" flextube dobsonian, so you can pack it and get away from lights. Such telescope can keep you interested for many years. Big difference from 6", you'll always miss those 2 inches yet 10" might be too large.