[masraum]

I'm no expert, and can't claim to know a fraction of what Mike B knows about this stuff, but I did a bunch of research and spent several months on the Astronomy forums before I bought my scope. I struggled with the "so many different types and so much info" problem before I bought. I also had someone donate a 4" refractor to me (just the scope, I had to mount it to my camera tripod) for a couple of months before I bought my current scope) A refractor is a nice instrument, but aperture makes an enormous difference.

Just like in the high perf auto world "there's no substitute for cubic inches". In many ways astronomy is the same. You could say, "there's no substitute for square millimeters."