[Brycepj (Peter)]

G!day everyone,
I have been read all you post with interest and it has been very educational.
Awhile back I decided to buy a pair of binoculars primarily for star gazing so I waited for a sale and picked up Olympus 10 x 50 which reading forums was an excellent place to start. Really good advice as it's been great. Of course the next step was ok which telescope, after reading and reading and questioning and fortunately been able to look through a 8 inch dod and a 5" televue refractor on an eq mount which had go to capability which actually blew me away seeing saturn 's rings. My thoughts were ok I'll pick up a small refractor with Goto for about $900. Before I pushed the button I thought hang on $900 is a fair bit for first scope as eventually I will want some thing better as eventually astro photography would be great I had a rethink and thought well my 10 x 50 are great how about up the mag. and aperture to say 20x80 that should get me out there and they are still reasonably portable I.ve got a good tripod for my DSLR. Trying to find one has been tough on a budget of say $300. Then I picked up a copy of "Australian Sky & Telescope May/June and there is this guy talking about how good his spotting scope is the things he sees how portable etc.. I can pick up a Celestron Ultimate 80 for $300 maybe that's the way to go. So my question is this what's wrong with spotting scopes for star gazing 20- 60 x80 highly portable, vs 20 x 80 binoculars I have read good and bad about spotters is this reasonable or do I just keep saving for the whiz bang refractor for $2,000? What am I missing.?