[simonr23 (Simon)]

Hi everyone, I'm looking at getting my own first telescope. as a kid (26 now) we had a small cheap refractor for the moon and just seeing saturn, and then a cheapish manual reflector. i think it was about 90-100mm. this let us see the planets a bit better.

I'm now going to buy my own telescope, with the hopefull aim of it being something my partner wil want to join in with too. for this end, it needs to be pretty simple and easy to see and then follow planets, stars, etc.

i would love something that would enable me to see some intersting deep space stuff, if possible for my budget... around $1200 max.

please suggest anything that is going to be easy for us to use (i dont mind having to point it at an object myself, but would be nice to have it track automatically from there) and give me some satisfaction when i use it to see some of the more interesting and harder to see objects out there.

thanks heaps,

Simon.