Hello

[Athena]

Hello everybody

I am new to this forum so please forgive me if this question has been asked a million times.

I've been interested in astronomy since I was about 6 years old. Over the years I have had lots of telescopes unfortunately non of them have been practically good.

I currently have a Busnell 5" reflector which has awful optics and a even worse mount to that end I have decided to invest some money in a decent instrument.

Basically my primary requirement is to be able to resolve the planets with a good degree of clarity and my secondary requirement is to be able to see deep sky objects such as galaxies and nebula. This instrument would have to be relatively portable (live near London = awful light pollution) When I say portable I mean something that will go into the back of a large hatchback car.

Another major requirement would be a motorised mount which can interface with something like starry night backyard - I hate spending all night trying to find objects you see! It would also be nice to have some kind of digital imaging system which would be able to dump images directly to my laptop computer.

I have a budget of around £2000 for this project.

Would anybody be able to offer any recommendations or point me towards a Internet resource which I can use as a starting point.

Many thanks for reading and I look forward to your replies.

Athena

***EDIT***

I have been looking at the NexStar 8 SE, does anybody have any experience with this kit? Reviews?

I also been looking at the Celestron CPC 800 GPS GoTo SCT Telescope, optically is a very similar spec but looks as though it has a much more stable mount, can run off a car battery and has built in GPS. I have found a company who are selling this for £1479.00 complete with free binoculars, a 7mm super plossl and 10mm plossl eyepieces.

I would really appreciate any feedback.

Thanks

Anthena