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I'm overwhelmed by the the responses, thankyou all for your advice. To answer a few of the posts - I found links to this from er...um... on another forum where no one responded to my question. No, I don't have plans for astrophotography at this stage, my attraction to the EQ mount was more based on the fine control by hand. This is based on having never seen a Dob, let alone used one. I certainly plan a trip to Sydney to the shops soon. Stringscope, the info about the Canberra dark sky night is great, I'll contact you separately. It would be excellent to actually see the gear instead of reading about it. I can even compare the skies and see if I really have "dark sky". eg I can see with the naked eye that there was "something" at the bend in Scorpio's tail, which I could then see with my binoculars and identify as 6231. I have been enjoying immensely an old pair of Gerber 20 x 80 binoculars on a tripod I picked up 2nd hand. There's certainly plenty to see.
I really hadn't considered going to 10" as some have suggested. I also hadn't thought that an 8" on an EQ mount would be more heavy/awkward than a 10" Dob. I assume that I would be better off with a fan on a 10" due to our large daily temp differential. Add to that the nice Crayford focuser and suddenly I have a GS 10" premium Dob. See, I've been reading madly.
Your thoughts have been much appreciated
Thanks,
BC
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