Which Dobsonian? Skyliner-300P Flextube Synscan Go-To OR Orion Skyquest XX12i Intelliscope Truss Push to

[Astronolee]

OK so I have 100% narrowed it down to a choice between one of these scopes for my 1st Telescope...Its a 40th Birthday present and I want to get this decision right...The Skyliner or Orion? Both are almost the exact same price on Telescope House and I cannot really see much difference except Skyliner has tracking and Orion is Push-To. Does anyone have an opinion whether one is better than the other?...Also someone recently advised me that they would be tempted to go with a none GOTO version and instead spend extra money on nice set of EP's as the 300 will bring out the shortcommings if using poor EP's. I thought though at almost £1400 each the EP's would be decent enough? On a seperate note would anyone know whether the base would fit inside a cupboard with a width of 22 inches...Sorry for so many questions :-)

[brantuk]

The flextube is just off 25" diameter in the base so I think I can say it won't fit in your cupboard.

[sparkyjon]

not had any experience in any of these scopes except looking and dreaming on internet, personally i would go with the skywatcher only because i think the orion is fixed and doesnt collapse.. so it makes it a little easier to store? although i could be wrong..

as for goto it's up to you, it depends if you know the sky well i suppose it comes in handy for tracking if imaging with webcam or dslr, as i dont think thee is a auto track upgrade for a dob mount..