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Just some general comments David:
- focus on visual astronomy at first and see how your interest develops. Imaging requires a significantly greater commitment and good skies.
- if you're going to be observing from a light polluted backyard you need a bigger aperture to help combat the light pollution; a 12" along with light pollution filters (UHC, OIII) would be good.
- if you will be travelling regularly to dark sites portability is of greater concern; for example a 10" solid tube dob is much easier to transport in most cars than a 12".
- a 10" at a dark site will show many more objects than a 12" from a suburban yard, but slipping out to the backyard is much more convenient.
- if you're interested in a schmidt cassegrain the new Meade LX80 with 10" scope might be worth considering, after waiting to see if the intial reviews are favourable. Being able to seperate the optical tube from the mount is a very desirable convenience - makes the whole setup more portable and allows use of other scopes on the same mount.
- if you're particularly interested in a more expensive scope (eg. LX200 vs dob) now is a good time to buy since they are likely to be more expensive in the future due to a falling aussie dollar.
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