Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightingale
The people who are advising you to get a large Dobsonian without GOTO and tracking are purely and simply giving you the wrong advice..
In fact, if you are a beginner, you should get a GOTO system.. period! even if it is a smaller aperture scope.. You will learn the night sky quicker rather than wasting time looking and tracking yr object.. this will save you a lot of frustrating nights.. believe me, I have been there..
It is actually the other way round.. a larger Dobsonian is actually for more experienced astronomers... as it takes time and patience to find the object, balance your scope with heavy eyepieces and manually track your object...
Do not make the mistake I made! Always get a GOTO as a beginner (whatever type or aperture you can afford).. the mount is by far the most important part of your telescope.. and tracking is very very important.. in a Dobsonian, your beautiful globular cluster would have veered out of your field of view by the time you picked up a new eyepiece to change the magnification..
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I agree completely with this... if you want to see stuff from the get go.... then buy something with goto... if you want to faff around, try to learn to starhop & possibly get frustrated & give up, then don't buy a goto...
I've been at this hobby now for 11 years... I'd have given up long ago if I hadn't bought a goto mount for the 80mm refractor I started with... I now own a large aperture custom built dobsonian that doesn't have goto but, it still has DSC & a Nexus device so I can find stuff... but, if your budget is $2000, you aren't even in vaguely in the hunt for what I purchased...
I am only now beginning to get interested in actually learning the night sky but, it will be a slow process... in the meantime, I have my goto & my DSC's to still find things whilst I learn... so the slow process will not prevent me from seeing things & will therefore cause me little to no frustration..
So, for your budget, there are actually a number of options that you might consider & still get goto, even if you purchase new... even a 10" dob with goto is not that far a stretch from your stated budget...
As Nightingale suggests, goto is a must if you want to stay interested & see things whilst you learn... I could not endorse his suggestion any more strongly..
There will be many others on here that disagree & that's their right... just because goto wasn't an option when they got into the hobby (in some cases) or because they were single minded enough to learn the night sky as they got into the hobby, doesn't mean everyone is or that you are...
The technology exists & is quite affordable.. why not use it to your advantage...