the 12" telescope if you can afford it and fit it in your car with family is the best way to roll, you wont be selling it next week put it thish way!
Ive had a 10" dobsonian now for 3 odd years and its worked flawlessly! Remember aperature rules irrispective of if its visual or photographic terms!
If you want to do a bit of photography, generally with a 10" telescope you will only need half a second to expose it enough, 1 second should blow out a normal DSLR other wise go with a webcamera, there is a guy who was selling them around on this site if i remember correctly 100 bucks or so and some great work has been done with them.
If you really get serious with astrophotography though, its a totally different ball game!
lets just wait for a good 6 months before you start trundling down that steep slope to sleepless nights and days if you have kids!
Brendan
