Hey Folks,
My name's Russell. First post here, and I'm asking for help already
I've been into Astronomy on & off for many, many years, but never been dedicated enough to puit decent money into getting setup, so it's always been casual observing in-passing, or when people ask.
I had a (yeah, don't laugh) Tasco 11TR many years ago, and sold it to help pay for the new family that was coming along, as ta that time I hadn't used it for ages either. I got disillusioned with scope as that one always gave me fuzzy images of Jupiter, was impossible to align on anything (my own finding skills were and still are very poor, which didn't help) and keep centred (never could get EQ alignment to work properly), and I got too frustrated to try anymore.
Since then I bought a decent pair of Carl Zeiss binoculars and use that occasionally to look for 'special' events.
Anyway, for reasons that may become apparent at a later date, I'm getting back into Astronomy, and looking for a better scope. Money's still my limiting factor, but I want to get something decent enough, or not at all.
So, after a few days checking out the current market, and deciding I can't afford $2,800 for a Nexstar c8i (or something equivalent), I'm back to looking in my real price range, at the GSO 6, 8 or 10 inch Dobsonian.
I emailed Lee at Andrews about postage etc, and said I hoped to eventually add DSC and an Argo Navis, as I think being able to be guided to what I want to see, will increase my enjoyment of astronomy (due to my previous frustration at not being able to find anything). I'm also a computer geek, so am into all things electronic.
He replied and said maybe I should go for a Celestron CG-5, and avoid all the hassle with DSC's and other add-ons.
Now, I did originally look at 5" scopes as my starting point, as portability (just to go from the house to my yard with minimal hassles to make it 'easy' to observe) was one of my early criteria. Also, my kids are old enough now to start being interested. However, given my little lasco was 114mm, I was shying away from 5" as not being much better. Of course, I assume the quality through a 5" celestron would be better than a 5" Tasco, but as I have no proof of that, I'm going on extrapolation from 114mm to 150mm.
Right, so if 5" SCT type scopes are not 'good enough' and 6"+ SCT are too expensive, that really leads me back to Dobs.
My hesitation with Dobs is portability (I do have intermittent back problems from a slipped disc years ago) and manual positioning. The ability to add DSCs would overcome my second concern, although whether I'd ever spend twice as much of setting it up (scope $399, DSC + Argo $990), as the cost of the scope, may mean it never happens. I'm assuming installing the gear into an existing Dob would not be hugely complicated. Portability, I'm not sure how much of an issue that will be. My observing will probably be spontaneous more often than not, so quick setup and locating what I want, and returning it back to storage each time, may be important.
So, after that rambling discourse, how do people feel about Lee's suggestion of going for the 5" celestron (and I'll have to twist the wife's arm to spend $1400 all at once), as opposed to my original though of the 8" GSO Dobsonian, and future update to DSC's?