Wow, thanks again everyone, I am always humbled by the responses.
Hi Outcast, thanks for sharing your take on this. Alas, cost is most definitely a consideration. And I should stress again that it’s going to take some tectonics to shift my 925 off the mount. My first scope! After years of armchair observing. I would of course love to have the “big dob”, but ultimately would like just to have a newt to view through, whatever size, mass produced or custom or even ATM. I’m lucky, in that I have a semi permanent setup. So a big dob would be mostly setup, ready to go.
Alex, there aren’t any Astro societies in Darwin
I will get down to a star party interstate at some point. I’m completely opposite of the buy in haste philosophy! It takes me forever to buy anything of substance. Too much cogitation at times. But it’s served me well so far...very few regrets with my current two scopes. Although I wish I had researched a bit more about focal reduction on the ES102. But I wasn’t thinking of imaging back then.
I’m very tempted by an 8in newt, or having a go at building a simple 6in. ( not the grinding bit,
)
H