[Chaos-l] Buying a scope

[Matt Lochansky]

Hi everyone -

Hope you had fun at Farrington or Medoc on Friday.  It was one of the
best nights I've had in the 10 months I've been observing - I made it
to my backyard about 9:30 (hence why I wasn't able to get to
Farrington - a 30 minute drive).  It did get a bit chilly later in the
evening, but I was exhausted by 11:30pm and came inside.  I had such a
good time, but so limited by my aperture, that I decided now is the
time.  I've been talking about buying a nice scope for quite a while
now, but wanted to tool around with the Meade ETX-90EC I've been
loaned.  It clearly has some limits with deep sky objects I enjoy
finding, but I have been able to see some of the common fainter
objects, even if they are just dark smudges in the eyepiece.

Looking for comments, tips, or suggestions...

I've pretty well decided on the Orion XT10i (with the intellicope
add-on).  Great value for the price and the "intelliscope" feature is
just what I want.  What accessories would you recommend for someone
who has never owned a newtonian previously?  On my list I have a laser
collimator, variable polarizing filter, a single 2" eyepiece (the
scope comes with an adapter so I can use my 1.25" eyepieces and
filters) - even going to buy a solar filter.  I have a few other
things on the list, but not related to the telescope directly.  Any
other must-have accessories for a first-time buyer?  I"m sure this is
in the archives somewhere, but they are hard to search!

Thanks,
-Matt