Hello,
I currently own a tiny little 6" telescope lol. But I love that thing and had it for over a year now so I'm looking to upgrade. Every forum says we should go for the largest aperture we can purchase but I wonder if a 12" is worth it in a light polluted area as the price jump from 10" to 12" is huge. I live in the suburbs so I think it's like a bortle 7 or so. I don't take my telescope when I travel so I'm only a backyard astronomer.
Even though I'm looking at buying the Skywatcher collapsible dob, I think it would be very bulky and heavy. I'm a petite girl and I find my current telescope quite difficult to carry (but then again I try to store and also carry it in one piece) and often have my dad help me with it. But as you can probably tell I have caught the aperture fever so the 12" sounds very tempting to me so I'm willing to make sacrifices haha. I still want to be realistic though because there's no point in buying a telescope that will sit and collect dust because of its weight. I haven't seen a 12" telescope before so I really don't know how big they are.
Btw with my current telescope I can't move it around by hand if I want to. Would I be able to do that with the Skywatcher goto dobsonians? I thought I'd be able to do that with my current telescope but I was disappointed when I couldn't. I actually prefer locating objects by myself as I'm trying to learn the sky, but at the same time what if I want to see other objects in the sky which I don't know how to find! Do you think my 6" computerised telescope will do the job just fine if that happens? I want to make the right decision, computerised telescopes aren't cheap and I don't really have a steady income yet
Thanks for reading my essay
