Hello Jessica,
Take everything I say below with a grain of salt - they are my experiences and yours may be different.
After a year or two in the hobby, I found the hassle of dragging out an 8" dobsonian was keeping me away from the sky so I decided to sell a garage full of things I was not happy with to consolidate to either a Televue 76 or 85. I could not articulate this at the time, but now I can see that if I was going to downsize, I wanted to see everything I could at a smaller aperture and was willing to pay the extra 75% for the 15% increase in performance.
And even though there are those that will say my way is silly as William Optics or Skywatcher represent better value for money, there is something about just knowing you are looking through one of the best scopes that can be had without waiting for months or years.
Anyway, I got an unbelievable deal on a secondhand but mint TV102 which I loved for about a year until I got the TV85 with a tax related windfall. The 85 is just a fantastic mix of portability, optics and engineering.
I was using it exclusively of the 102 4-5 nights a week and this was partly the reason the 102 got sold - I also wanted to sell at it as I was getting a hankering to go back to big aperture to see if I was missing anything.
As far as dark sites and portability, a high quality short tube refractor at low power is hard to beat (m31 is amazing from the top of Mt Louisa) with the added bonus of razor sharp views of planets and doubles cleanly split at 75x per inch.
I had to sell it to pay for some bills, and I really wish I hadn't - I miss it a lot. As soon as I can, I will be getting another and that is coming from someone with a Nexstar 6SE.
Good luck with your decision
