My conclusion after last night.

[cutepetgroomer]

Using the 25mm Meade ep in my 70mm scope I have decided I want to get a new scope with a bigger aperture. Not too crazy big, but just big enough and still offers portability. I realize that would mean a dob style mount most likely .

[knobby]

what do you want to see?

[ronin]

To my thinking a 6" dobsonian would be the obvious, I would not suggest anything smaller as you will just want to get something bigger very quickly.

If you decide on a bigger scope then the first thing is to stop buying anything for the scopes you have, there is no point in purchasing accessories for something that you will not be keeping.

If you went back to the refractor side then look for what is the same as the Evostar 90.

May sound "childish" but this could be the sort of thing to have a jar and drop into it loose/spare change etc.

It would soon add up.

[cutepetgroomer]

I actually like looking at the planets more when the moon is not visible. Being able to see star clusters is a bonus and I'm thinking last night I saw a galaxy. Not sure because of the faintness of it but where I had the scope pointed, it is somewhat near Saturn but Saturn wasn't in the view. I was able to see Saturn,mars and was gonna try for Neptune, but it got more windy than i cared to be out in. I absolutely love looking at the moon, one might call me a moon addict when it's just right in the sky for me. I have three refractors after finding the third at a local thrift store and I enjoyed the views I was getting out of that quite nicely. I'm thinking since I like what the Barlow does, I might wanna try that tonight to see if I get better views. I only have a 3x Barlow but I did enjoy using it on Saturn a few weeks back.

[estwing]

There's a good reason why the 8" dob is the best selling dob in the uk

[Kirscovitch]

8 inch DOB or maybe a 5 or 6 inch newt on an cheaper eq mount??

[cutepetgroomer]

Where I live now, a dob is out of the question. I like newtonians better. This much I know from the astronomy class I had. We tried out different scopes and the refractors and newtonians were my favorites.

[estwing]

Errr what do you think a dob is? It's a newt on a simple mount??!!

[Kirscovitch]

I like newts. But it takes a lot of them to feel full. 

[Chris]

Do you mean that you prefer equatorial mounts to alt/az mounts? because as estwing said optics wise Newts and Dobs are the same thing. The 6" Dob in my avatar used to be on an equatorial mount then I built a simple alt/az Dob base for it. Its a lot more straight forward to use now

Chris

[Moonshane]

for ease of use you cannot beat a 6" newt on an altaz mount like a AZ4 or as I now have a giro. the latter is a bit more expensive and both work very well. the advantage of this sort of mount is that all of your scopes will benefit from the more stable mounting when you use them on it - you'll have choices given the kit you have. you could even potentially add one of your small fracs to the newt rings for wider lower power views or as a finder.

[cutepetgroomer]

My hubby knows my plan, and he's letting me piece together what I ultimately want to do. But I know I'm gonna get a reflector of decent size as soon as we get the house we are after. We want to get a house practically away from light pollution.

[Moonshane]

that would make a massive difference to what you'll see.

here's a pic of my giro mount and 6" newt to give you an idea

[faulksy]

that would make a massive difference to what you'll see.

here's a pic of my giro mount and 6" newt to give you an idea

very nice shane

[cutepetgroomer]

Well I do got my eyes on something like this http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/reflecting-telescopes/celestron114lcmcomputerizedtelescope.cfm

[ChrisLX200]

Well I do got my eyes on something like this http://www.telescopes.com/telescopes/reflecting-telescopes/celestron114lcmcomputerizedtelescope.cfm

To be candid - not enough aperture. I would consider 150mm as minimum for a reflector - which isn't a big scope to handle, and if it has GOTO like the one you linked to then at least with a 6" mirror you have a chance of actually seeing some of the things it points at. Don't rush into it though, consider other options.

ChrisH

[cutepetgroomer]

Which is why I'm not rushing into it. Hubby as clearly stated once I have the reflector, he's not getting anymore scopes. To be honest, I like focusing on building up the eps for both formats.