One night, about 9 years ago, my wife and I let out our greyhounds for a final stroll, and she looked up and noticed a meteor arcing across our Long Island skies! As it faded away -and we resumed breathing - we talked about always wanting a telesope when growing up. We did some research on those "goto" scopes by Meade and Celestron and checked them out at our local Camera/bino/telescope store. It was a toss up between a Meade 5" mak and the Celestron Nexstar 8i goto's. The Celestron's larger aperture won out and we enjoyed that wonderful scope for a number of years. We enjoyed many fine views of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and even Uranus and Neptune (as bloated blue and green dots). We never forgot our first view of Saturn and Orion Nebula in the C8!
The years passed and many telescopes came and went. We now enjoy viewing the night skies with a venerable "manual" 10" Teleport dob but there are times that I miss that C8i for it's sturdy mount, dependable goto functionality and great optics. One never forgets the thrill of "first light" with his/her first Telescope. That blazing meteor ignited our long lost interest in the wonders of the night sky - and those wonders will never cease for us.
George, NY