[xnomad]

Hi,

First of all let me introduce myself. I'm 32 years old, I live on Sydney's Northern Beaches and I'm keen to get into astronomy. I did a lot of star gazing as a child with binoculars and now I want to get my first telescope. Ideally I want to get started observing the planets and the moon.

We are moving shortly from a flat into a house with a garden so I want to start there and then move on to dark sky areas when I go on my camping trips up and down the coast.

I'm looking for a scope that is better suited for an urban area and is best for viewing planets with. I'm not frightened of tinkering, I'm a Linux Systems Administrator by profession :-) So I'm not put off the idea of having to polar align a GEM.

These are the scopes I've been looking at and are within my budget:

Skywatcher 102mm x 1000mm achromatic refractor on EQ mount
Skywatcher 127mmm x 1540mm Maksutov-Cassegrain on EQ mount

If I'm to get the 102mm refractor then I'm going to try and see if I can get the EQ5 with the steel tripod as I've heard the EQ3 isn't very stable at high mags.

What would you recommend, or do you have any experience with the above scopes?

Thanks,