Rob, welcome to IIS, there are a fair number of Central Coast members here, and some semi-regular events. Re your scope choices, the 8" or 10" GSO dobsonians are good starter scopes and do not require an Equatorial mount. Obvioualy the 8" takes up a little less space and is easier to handle. For planetarium software i would recommend Sky Safari, which has better graphics imho than Stellarium, it comes in Android and IOS versions so you can just run it on you phone or tablet.
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