Yep, that's me. Thanks for the compliment, I also created the website and help out at the store. We sell Meade, Orion, Celestron, and TeleVue products and I help people with these questions all the time. I'm not surprised Astronomics was so helpful, they're a great store.

As you can tell by my recommendations, aperture is often overrated for astrophotography -- the mount is way more important. As you increase aperture you significantly increase weight and that means the tripod/mount has to get significantly better (read costly, heavy, and bulky). Repeat with me, "It's the mount that gets great photos." A large aperture may let you get fainter objects in a shorter exposure or get you higher magnification on planets but not if the mount is shaking in the wind, vibrates every time you touch it, can't stay pointed at what you're exposing, or can't take that extra piece of equipment that would make your job easier.

With this in mind, I warn you against the LXD-55 10" SNT. I haven't seen one of these yet but that mount looks too small for a 10" SNT (which is larger than a 10" SCT), I would be worried about back-focus on any newtonian, and these things have been backordered from Christmas. I think the 6" model might be a good deal, but again I haven't seen one of these either. Many astrophotographers I know use a 4 or 5" apochromatic refractor on a Losmandy mount to get stunning images of galaxies. This is like a $10,000 investment. Frightening....

You were much closer with the LX90 8" ($1600 to 1800). Your first post mentioned portability and this scope would be excellent. A great improvement over an equatorial mount. It has a few limitations or extra items need to be purchased for some photo applications. A wedge would be needed when your exposure times get longer. Again I recommend the Celestron NexStar 5 or 5i ($1200). It really can do a lot. I see the 5i is backordered but the 5 is in stock at Astronomics. There's even a Celestar 8 for less than $1000 which used to be a standard entry astrophoto scope. As far as Celestron claims all the SCT optics get the same care and quality. If higher priced models "look better" (i.e. the view or photo thru them is better) it is because the mount gets better.

Check out Orion's astrophoto page,
http://www.telescope.com/cgi-bin/Ori...duct/View/J000
You could start with the R200SS and add extras overtime. This is an 8" newtonian, but they have it setup for astrophoto work so I have a much higher confidence in it's back-focus. The GP and GP-DX are excellent mounts. Much better than the LXD-55 (but not computerized).

There are tons of accessories that you may need as well. Check out Lumicon or Meade's websites. Don't forget to add these to the your total expenditure. If the scopes available now were around 2 years ago I would get either the Celestron NexStar 8 GPS (~$2500 not for the GPS but for the Fastar ability and the carbon fiber tube) or the LX90 (~$1700 to save money to get more accessories).

Re: SCT image quality. It is a compromise, trading best optics for a small body. The small body means a smaller mount, smaller motor, smaller tripod, and smaller storage in the house. All of these attributes can be very important to some astrophotographers. Remember the focal length of the 8" SCT is 2030mm; a comparable refractor or reflector would be more than 6 feet long! When people give you recommendations or mention a particular scope is best, ask some sideline questions. How portable is it? How many people set it up? How often do you use it? Where do you store it? You might be surprised at the answers. Large scopes may have permanent mounts or take an entire van and three people to set up. Remember, "Aperture always wins, until you have to pick it up and take it home."

Clear Skies