List Price: $309.99
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Today's Bonus: 3% Off
It is unbelievable to me that a scope this good can be had for this price. Six inches is a LOT of aperture. Forget those little blue rigs with the computerized pointing--you don't need a computer to find stuff, you need *aperture* so you can actually see it. Download some free planetarium software (like Stellarium), buy a sky atlas, and get a nice fat telescope like this one. You'll enjoy it more because the views will actually be good enough to linger over, and you can take pride in finding observing targets on your own. If you want a computer to do all the work, why even buy a telescope? Stay on the couch and surf for some Hubble images.
The scope is rock solid, it was in nearly perfect collimation right out of the box, and I put it together in about an hour while I watched TV. Then it was out the back door and BAM! The moon looks so good you may get stuck there for a while. Cloud belts on Jupiter are a breeze, as are the rings of Saturn. Star clusters look like diamonds scattered on black velvet. Galaxies and nebulas seduce your eyeballs until you realize that it's well past midnight and you're frozen half to death.
One warning: the best scope for you is the one you will use the most. At 35 lbs assembled this is about as much scope as I want to be moving by myself. So think about the weight. If you decide it would keep you from using this scope very often, get a smaller one. Orion's XT4.5 is this thing's little brother, it weighs half as much, and it has gotten uniformly good reviews just about everywhere.
One last thing: Dobsonians are not useful for most kinds of astrophotography but I have taken some stunning pictures of the moon just by holding my digital camera up to the eyepiece of this telescope. Give it a try--you may end up decorating your entryway with moon photos you took yourself.
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