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My 2 cents worth....Start with an 8" dob. You'll get great views of all you mention and will have to learn the sky in order to know where to look. You could do some prime focus photography of the moon through the eyepiece with your cydershot camera and a $70 bracket (or even hand held).It's reasonably portable and can be lifted and moved by one person. A Supercheap Auto hand trolley can help here too.I think many think they can dabble in astrophotography without a great investment - money and time. Beyond simple point and shoot photos I don't think that's true. The photography road is the possible road to madness particularly for the beginner. I think we tend to want to run before we've learnt to walk. I have a room full of gizmos to aid that aspect of the hobby but still struggle to polar align properly!The dob will give you hours of pleasure and terrific views for a modest investment and even if you were to invest in serious photography set up later this would still find a home. There's never any problem selling them secondhand either if you decided to do that.The money you save could be invested in a decent eyepiece because these signifcantly improve your viewing.Start small. Join an astro club to take advantage of what others can show you because astronomers need deep pockets but long arms as well!good luckniko
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