James, can you wait until you've seen a few scopes and looked through them? You'll learn a lot more quickly then - more than looking at the photos or seeing them in the shop.
However, to comment on some of your questions:- Yes, since the dobsonian mount is not being driven to counter the earth's rotation, the sky moves through the field of view. With, say a 30mm eyepiece, this is relatively slow - you can observe without worrying about the movement. At high magnification - say a 10mm eyepiece in a 2x barlow lens - yes, the object zips through in tens of seconds max. Straight out of the box, you should be able to easily move your scope in its dobsonian mount to keep bringing the object back to the field of view. With a few modifications (all described in various threads) this can become an easy task that, with experience, becomes second nature.
If you really don't want this bother, yes, look at an equatorial mount, driven on the RA axis. Also much easier to show the object to others who are not experienced in the gentle "nudge" movement needed to track with a dobsonian.
Most of these scopes should come with some bundled eyepieces - ask. Start with those - you'll see plenty.
Re an astronomy guidebook, try the "Atlas of the SOuthern Night Sky" by Massey and Quirk:-
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=23186
You could also look at the "Pocket Sky Atlas" by Sinnott if you just want to find things:-
http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes...5411089&sr=8-1
I believe that you would also need a planisphere - buy one of the big ones, not the small ones.
Eric
