Welcome Jeff, good to see another Lonny boy. I really can't see any value in an eq mount unless you're going to use it for astrophotography, and a solid eq mount is out of the equation for a budget of under $1000. Secondly there's no sustitute for aperture, the bigger the better. A small refractor may be easy to tote outside and requires no cooldown time, but ultimately will be disappointing (visually) next to a dob. The elegant simplicity of the dob and the optical performance for your dollars is hard to beat. Take a trip to Dave P's place and check out his dob, or turn up to our next new moon viewing session....