Re the 6" f/5 Newt, I have no experience with that particular one, but it is probably an okay scope (as long as the mirror is parabolic - I doubt it would be anything else). But the mount it comes with will not be good enough for astrophotography. And it's a fast Newt which means if you are planning on using a DSLR coma will probably be an issue. Should be okay though with imagers using small CCD chip, eg DSI.[/quote]
I have recently bought one of these with an EQ6 dual axis drive mount S/H here on IIS and am very pleased with it. The only niggle was slop in the rack and pinion focusser, but a bit of brass shim of appropriate size fixed that. Previously bought a 150 x 1400 newt on ebay with a mount roughly equivalent to an eq2 and found problems with shake and difficult focussing. The mirror proved not to be parabolic, is made of some sort of composite material and, until I received my laser collimator from Bintel today, darn near impossible to collimate. Avoid these at all cost.
These are my first reflectors, having used my trusty 60 x 1000 refractor for the last 15 years, and while they are a bit more fiddly for set up, I wish I'd got one years ago ( but asked these guys here for some advice first
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