The 6" scope costs a full $100 less, and so it's tempting. I know that those 2 inches translate into about twice the area. Intuitively, it seems like the image would be twice as bright, but I heard that human perception of brightness is not linear, and so perhaps it doesn't make that big of a difference. They both have the same focal length, fyi, and one is an f/8 while the other is an f/6. The 8" is technically affordable, but a little bit painful also. Maybe I'll just wait another 2-3 months.

Edit: Shipping is also a bit painful, at about $75. Also, do you think I should get a case for it? It's an Orion Dobsonian. Those add another $70 or so to the price. All of this adds up a bit, and I wonder how much luck I'd have finding a comparable Dob from a local retailer so that I can save on shipping.

The late summer milkyway has lots of interesting ojects that may be all the more interesting in an 8" vs. 6", so maybe waiting a few months wouldn't be so bad?

As for a case, why? Would you plan on moving it around or traveling with the telescope? Personally, I would save the cost of the case to pay for shipping of the larger scope or buy some nice accessories.

Go here to look for local dealers of Celestrons: http://www.celestron.com/c2/dealers.php or here for Meades: http://www.meade.com/dealerlocator/ but I can't find a resource for Orion.

-Veeger

Yes, the 2" of aperature will make a difference, and is well worth the extra $ if you can afford it. The 6" might make you want to upgrade to the 8" down the road anyways (no guarantees that getting the 8" now won't stop upgraditis from hitting you either )

As far as a scope case, I'd say that unless you plan to do a lot of traveling with the scope, a case probably isn't necessary. I've had the Orion 8" and now have the Orion 10", never bought a case for either of them. I've done a fair amount of traveling with both of them, in winter my observing site is about 40 minutes away, summer its 70 minutes away. I've also taken it to a star party 3 times, 2 hours away, and I took it down to Phoenix just a couple weeks ago - 1600 miles.

i ordered the 8" two weeks ago. telescopes.com had free ground shipping so that made my decision for me.

I'd have to agree with the rest of the crowd here in saying you dont need a case.
take a look at some truss tubed dobs from meade, those are a bit easier to break down and transport if you plan on doing a lot of traveling.

Veeger,
FWIW, a list of Celestron dealers is not very useful to a person (like the OP) who is looking for an Orion 'scope!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

My bad. I have edited my post accordingly. (I was trying to do two things at once!)

-Veeger

I'd recommend going to a star party if you can find a club in your area. There you will likely see both size scopes and can see the difference for yourself. Then decide if it is worth the extra cost to you.

When I got into astronomy in the 50's everyone's dream was a 6". Most couldn't afford that. It was several hundred dollars more for an 8". Considering that would be over $500 more in today's dollars few ever got one. Today is hardly a tank of gas difference.

Most would consider 8" the sweet spot in that typical seeing blurs things about to the resolution point of an 8" scope. On nights of good seeing a 6" leaves you knowing you aren't seeing the detail you could if you had a larger scope. I find such nights about half the time and my seeing is pretty average. But there's only 4 or 5 nights a year my 10" would show more than an 8" as far as detail is concerned.

As to twice the light, its actually about 75% more. But that also allows you to see far more than 75% more stars in many globular clusters, more than 75% more detail in galaxies etc. Yet you are paying only 40% more.

On the other hand buying the 6" leaves budget room for extras that are very worthwhile and will not be obsolete if or when you move up to a 10".

Also the better observers in our club started with scopes of 6" in size or less. It seems the dimmer image with less resolution forced them to learn how to get the most out of what they had. Most starting at 8" just never developed those skills. I get a lot of flack for saying this but I've seen it far too many times in our club to ignore it.

My first scope was a home made 6" f/12 back in 1954 so I can't argue with starting at 6". Commercial 6" scopes cost more in real dollars than a 12" does today so if you wanted a 6" you built it yourself.

Rick

I use the 6 in and like it fine. An 8 in is more bulky and I don't like the extra weight.

It depends on what you want to see. I can see everything I want to fine with 6 in.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

I started out with a 60mm refractor, then about 6 months later, I upgraded to a 6" dob, which served me well for about 4 years. Ive just upgraded to a 10" Meade Lightbridge and I don't know how I managed with my rickety 6" dob. It had lots of slippage, I could never get it aligned perfectly and I didn't really like the design of the base. I did get used to it and I managed to find lots of deep sky objects with it. However, I was ready for something bigger and I got the 10". Im still trying to get the finderscope aligned with the telescope but I love it already. The moon looks fantastic!!

Smaller scopes are better for looking at Andromeda, because its such a big, wide galaxy, smaller scopes pick up more of it. Whereas bigger scopes can't accommodate for the wideness of Andromeda, so you can't see the entire thing in the eyepiece. Someone explained this to me at an astro camp once and I was quite surprised.