Some advice on Celestron or Skywatcher N 200/1000

Sweet, dont forget the obligatory pics when you get it!

Hi Mark,
I have an NEQ6 mount wich is a bigger brother of HEQ5.And can say that its much more harder to polar allign than celestron one.But once you do polar allign you can get up to 3min shots with it.I know that practise makes perfect but i have it for near enough 2 yesrs and it still takes me 5 to 10 min to do it.Plus if you are looking for portability as far as i know celestron one is much lighter.I have to take apart my mount every time i use as its simly to heavy to carry around in one piece, when Mike can move his mount in one hand.
Personaly if i would had the oportunity to choose the mount i would go for celestron one...and would buy a good refractor rather than Newt...And would strongly recomend to come over to one of the meet ups to have a look what different scopes can offer before you splash the cash.

Good luck with your new scope Mark, I would like to echo Martin's suggestion. Go along to an observing session of your local Club if you get a chance.
Mike



Completely off topic:
Martin and I both have 200 posts -Hooray.

Oops, sorry Martin I've got 201 now.

Unfortunatly my 'local' club is Galway (1.5 hour drive each way) however I am debating trying to set up a more local group.