[pgreenwood]

I got an 8" Dobsonian about ten years ago at still am far from exhausting the possibilities. I got the Bintel (GSO) brand which seemed a little better, came with three eyepieces decent focusser and finder, and moon filter.

You can move the 8" Dob around with one person and fits across the back seat of a small car. You manually push it around so you learn to star hop, and learn the constellations more than you would with an electronic GOTO.

Only last year upgraded the eyepieces to Baader Morpheus. Gives good claer views of Saturn & rings, cassini division, Jupiter & great red spot, equatorial bands, Uranus, Neptune, Messier objects etc etc.

A 6" dob is a good option for planetary viewing too and arguably better than 8" in some regards (a bit smaller and more forgiving on cheap eyepieces). 8" is better for deep space objects of course.

Consider a 10" dob for deep space, but they start to get a bit large to move around.