okay, quick check, if he is going the photography route, do not get the truss tube modle go the solid tube. Reason being you will have major difficulties mounting a truss tube on a goto mount or any mount for that matter.
Don't be affraid of the portability of a 10", like i stated it fits in a lancer accross the back seat and recently i went about 40min out of perth to join a club outing, i had myself my partner, my son, my 10" scope, base and all, a 5" meade ETX ,tent, bags, food, accessories ect ect. the truss tube is only marginally lighter and smaller anyhow.
Oh by the way i can verify that the SW dobsonian tubes mounted on a eq6 produce some very nice images. I was with a friend off this forum on saturday night he has a 8" SW mounted with a orion short tube guide scope and a cannon 350D DSLR, we where capturing the horse head/flame nebula, a few nice open clusters ect ect.
As for the collmination one of the easiest methods for a beginner is the laser. though be highly aware that you need to collminate the laser first.
This in itself is not hard, locate the 3 grub screws (i think one is under a sticker) then find something so you can rotate the colminator round and round in, observe the laser beam on a wall ~5m away, if it turns a circle about 1 -1.5cm then your pretty much spot on. you can get it better thats upto your padanticness.
My own method i employ 2 different types of tools.
-A laser (to align the secondary to the primary mirror
-A cheshire (to align the primary to the ep)
Soon i will have to employ a high end collmination system as astro photography requires this because a CCD is far more sensitive but thats a whole new demon.
hope i have cleared it up for you
Brendan
