"RavenX" wrote in message
...

I'm interested in buying a telescope for DSO.

6" aperture minimum, 8" or larger recommended

My main use would be
educating my kids, showing friends and family and exploring random
spots, maybe find my own comet. Let me dream =) I would also like to
do astrophotography using a web cam.

Sorry, but this is a conflict of interests. Exploring is something that is
best done with a simple altazimuth mount, like the Dob, or any scope on a
non EQ mount. OTOH, keeping an object in the eyepiece, or in the Camera is
the purpose of an EQ mount.


I understand aperture is the most
important thing. But I want a portable system I can put in the back of
my midsize suv and setup by myself. I'm in the military so it would be
packed up and shipped every 3+ years. So it would need to be rugged.
Although I only have 8 years left till I retire I might be better off
waiting on the massive aperture scope. Thoughts?

An 8" F6 Dob isn't massive. Nor is an 8" SCT on a mount like the Unistar
from Universal Astronomics. Although you _will_ need to allocate space.


I'm considering the Meade ETX-125PE since it looks good for
portability and web cam astrophotography. Plus it should be ready to
use pretty quickly. It appears to be fairly rugged compared to other
designs.

Well, as nice as this scope might be, because of it's long focal length, it
is limited to a narrow field of view, as well as falling below the 6"
minimum for DSO's. Sort of a double whammy unless you are okay with those
limitations.


Dobs look good for the price. But they are so cheap which sort of
scares me. Also the mount system looks like I have to manually move
the scope which could make finding DSO a real burden. Is this correct?

I just spent some time procuring and setting up a GoTo German Equatorial
mount for my 4" F9 refractor. I also intend to get a larger aperture scope
for this mount at a later date. Funny thing.... last night I just wanted to
take a quick tour of objects at well known locations, which is a perfect
task for the 4" refractor. But, I didn't want to carry out the GEM and
battery, and go through the alignment proceuder, so instead I pulled the GEM
head off the tripod, popped on the UniStar Light altazimuth head, attached
the 4" refractor and went out to poke around. Believe it or not, that swap
procedure takes less time than setting up and aligning the GoTo. ;-)

The main point of course being that if you are under the gun to get outside
and poke around for a half hour or so, nothing beats having some knowledge
of where to look, and a simple Up/Down, Left/Right mount (altazimuth). For
showing things to others, few will have the patience to stand around while
you align the GoTo computer. This task takes time. Equally though, folks
will not want to stand around for 10 minutes while you search in vain for an
object to observe.

The best advice is to get yourself a scope, learn how to aim, and then start
showing others. You suggest that you are familiar with the sky, so all you
need do is become familiar with the process of aiming a scope.

Astrophotography possible with these?

That's a big, expensive, work-filled word. Imaging is not a task you can
enter lightly. It requires a good mount, a CCD, and software and computer
skills. Put it off for later.


Truss mounts like teeters telescopes planet killers look very tempting
due to the huge apertures. Has anyone used these? Are they worth it?
Can 1 person set these up alone? Are these manual moving only? Can you
do astophotography with these scopes?

I do apologize I'm just lost in all this.

Slow down. Start simple. Work your way into it. Even though I started out
with a small GoTo scope like the ETX series, I prefer to use a manual
altazimuth mounted scope for "point and look" observing, whether it's my
12.5" Solid Tube Monster Dob, or my 4" F9 ED refractor. Manual tracking is
only a bother at "planet" (high) powers. Better than 90% of deep sky
observing is done at mid to low power.

Get an 8" F6 Dobsonian, and don't look back. Later, if you want to do
imaging, add a second "imaging" setup to experiment with. If you stick with
it, great. If you don't, well even if you do, you will still want that 8" F6
Dob for simple poking around the sky.