Like most things, I knew nothing about telescopes.
After doing my research I knew I wanted a dob... but had to pick between Normal - Push To - and GoTo.
Normal - You move it where you want it. You have to be familiar with the night sky to target objects.
- Advantage: More scope for the $$$$. The cost is totally in the scope so you get a larger scope for the money.
- Disadvantage: You need to be familiar with objects in the sky to be able to find them.
-- Scope will not track objects, you must move it.
Push To - You move it, but there's a display that tells you which way to move it to find the object your looking for.
- Advantage: Easier to find objects, most have 4000+ object databases. Simple setup and it'll find stuff for you.
- Disadvantage: Less scope for the $$$$ because of the "computer".
-- Scope will not track objects, you must move it.
GoTo - Simply set it up and pick what you want to see. Scope moves to target automatically.
- Advantage: Anyone can find objects in the sky.
-- Scope will track objects, keeping them in view even with the earth's rotation.
- Disadvantage: Less scope for the $$$$ because of the motorized tri-pod and computer.
I went with a GoTo because I figured that having to target stuff manually would just suck and my son would quickly lose interest. With the GoTo we just set it up and the hand held display will give us a list of interesting objects. We just chose one to look at and the scope goes to it. More time viewing and less time searching.
If anyone is interested I can explain a little more about magnifications and such. It's all stuff I've learned over the past few months of researching. If there are questions, I'll do my best to answer them.
