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Hello Brett
Thinking over the six years since I picked astronomy up again... everything is an individual choice and no one is going to be prescriptive. My views, for what they are worth, are, in no particular order:
If you don't know the night sky well then a Dob mount is a great way to make you learn. I still enjoy star-hopping, that is, finding my way to a target through the finder, relying on SkyAtlas 2000. It's nice to know many of the stars and constellations (my knowledge is far from perfect). Low tech also has its advantages - I've had a ten inch Dob for six years (same as Bintel's) and it's nice just to be able to take it out of the garage and start looking without having to plug anything in.
There are many ways of enjoying the night sky. If you want to extend your visual experiences - and my ten inch has been fantastic as a visual telescope - then that's a very good thing to do, and a ten or twelve inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount would be a great way to go. Incidentally my ten inch has given very good views of the planets as well as the deep sky. Don't forget that you will need some eyepieces, not too many, and you don't need to shell out more for the eyepieces than the telescope costs, but you will want three or four. If you do go for such a telescope then you will be blown away by the difference after your 4.5 inch.
As far as imaging is concerned, that has been something I've often thought of, but have not so far as the deep sky is concerned ever got around to. I still get a lot of enjoyment from simply looking with my eyes. That said, what other responses have indicated about mount capacity is a significant issue. I have now got a C 9.25 which rides on an HEQ5 and that's fine for imaging the planets. But, I have put my ten inch Newtonian OTA on that mount and it's very marginal for that.
I think if I was going to move into deep sky imaging from scratch I would look for an 80mm ED refractor and start there. Or, given that I now have an HEQ5, I might look at a 6 or 8 inch reflector, f/4 or 5. My point is that I think if I was going to image the deepsky that is a separate question, and it's very hard to find one instrument that will do everything. Something else that has often been noted is that off the shelf Newtonians on Dobsonian mounts have one problem when it comes to imaging: the focuser won't work with a digital SLR so you have to adapt your equipment anyway. Apart from that problem, though, solid-tube reflectors are easy enough to mount on a German equatorial mount, and many retailers have the adapter bars and tube rings which you need. A truss design seems a bit different.
I guess the summary of my views is that if you are contemplating a ten or twelve inch Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount that is excellent for visual and you will have a great deal of enjoyment, and will be able to hit the ground running without spending too much money or getting into technical complexities. If you are wanting to do some imaging, that's a whole other question, and you say you only 'may' want to. If it was me I would look at that dimension later on, or, if I wanted to do it now, I would be looking at another sort of setup. The deepsky imaging forum is inspiring in terms of what many people do with their various equipment.
all the best
Jim
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