Hello. This telescope was reviewed in Sky&Telescope magazine recently. The reviewer said that it outperformed a 102mm apo refractor. But it wasn`t able to equal the performance of a 127mm apo refractor. I`ve come across other reviews saying the same thing. So it`s a step or two above the 90mm Meade. To find out about similar scopes, go to I.T.E.`s, Hands-On-Optics`s, Earth and Sky Adventure Products`s or APM Information System`s websites. Such scopes are also often talked about in Astromart`s forums. As for street/city lights, the bigger the aperture - the more affect they have but they`ll affect most scopes to some extent. Thus, it`s best to get as far as possible from such light. However, the Argonaut 150 Mak-Cas should outperform a Meade 90mm with or without street/city lights. Hence, it would still be an upgrade. If the street/city lights are bad, though, I certainly wouldn`t go any bigger than 6 inches with this type of scope . GOOD LUCK!!!