Just bought an 8" reflector with tripod that has fine adjustment controls so you can manually adjust out the Earths rotation for The Evster (youngest daughter). Mega Chrimbo present, can see fights after Christmas to look through it. Might be able to see if men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

Ains.

now looking at some Celestron "go to" scopes"

yeah they're good. and mine is only a cheap one, the Meade Cassegrain would be nice, but i've got a tasco 5.5" reflector, but it does the job, altho with tripod little awkward get it out house each time..

the one you're talking of would be good, or just invest in ace pair of bins 10x50 to start off with and see how you get on...

get the planisphere, red torch and a book from waterstones you'll be well away.

I tell you something pretty to look out, The beehive cluster which you'll find just above cancer and along from gemini. The Gemini twins are called Castor and Pollux and is lovely sight when you see them all together with Libra too, my fave constellation is Orion though, and you can see M42 the nebulae hanging off his sword by his belt...

Once you've trained yourself in bins or scope you'll be able see fuzzy patch with naked eye when you know where to look.

This brings back my days with the South Downs Astronomical Society, John Mason and all. I was only a (small) part of it for a short while but at that time, I was mad for astronomy. These days I cannot even find my way around the night sky. Senility has set in.
When I'm rich, I'm going to get me a decent telescope ... funny, I was saying that thirty years ago. Where does the time go? :puzzled:

haha small world, well you probably know then i'm a volunteer for the Planetarium than John Mason gives talks at, and we're involved in the star club etc etc too, and I have been to Clanfield Observatory and Patrick Moore's telescopes are great too, luckily on Patricks Birthday (he was 83 last birthday) he let me use them at his party, and we saw great lovely things that i'd never seen before!

celestron 102 SLT is Loooking good!!

go for it! have fun

Jasper..... there are a number of buying guides from this guy on ebay...... loadsa detail.
Telescope guides
HTH

My GF bought me one for my Birthday just like this one http://tinyurl.com/yhdqfw Apart from looking at the Moon i find it really hard to view or find anything else. I got an Astronamy book but its pretty indepth and im struggling. I really wanna look at Saturn but dont know how

Saturn is low in the night sky at the moment.and to the right of the moon Need to look eastwards. 4D