Buying a new telescope...suggestions welcome

Hello there fellow astronomers
I am new to this newsgroup, but I have been a member of alt.astronomy for a
while now.
I am here thanks to Starlord, one of your frequent posters here.
Anyhow, I know that pretty much every week someone needs some help with
buying a telescope and now it's me.
Anyhow, I live in Calgary AB and at a relativly dark place, not that many
lights around my house, since a provincial park is 20 meters away from it
and it spands for a few kms. I might consider taking my future scope out to
the park where it's very dark or observe from my balcony.

I plan to spend up to $600 CND or $500 US dollars, pretty much a maximum.
I know that a lot of people recomment celestorn on atl.astronomy and meade
sometimes too, so I need a good trusted brand.
I want something up to a meter high or so, but not too high or heavy.
Preferably something with the 'go to' function or something like that, since
I don't know where many of the interesting objects are located.
I do own lots of astronomical software, such as Starry Nights and so forth.
However, I want something powerful to actually see any of those cool
objects, such as nebula, most of the solar planets, and so forth, but I hope
that this isn't too ambitious.
I think that's all, please help many of you as possible and I don't think
that it matters whether it's on a tripod, or some small base, but most
likely a reflector.
Also, I googled some guides on buying telescopes, but if anyone can
contribue any other factors, such as what I should look for mostly or
experiances please do so.

So far, I like Celestorn NexStar 114 and 130, but budet allows me 114
comfortably with the stand. Should I squeeze a few more bucks and get
perhaphs 130 if it is that much better? Also, I saw some Orion telescopes,
but I will look into that more this weekend, and I didn't see any of them
with the go to function. I can't seem to find any Meade telescope from
200-500 USD, only the very basic one LX70 or something like that for around
300 USD.

Please help and thank you so much.



.

Relevant Pages

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