Hi Drew,
What model canon do you have? You'd be surprised what an old canon can do as long as you get enough exposure.
I would probably get a small planetary cam zwo120 or 224 (with a barlow or something like a 4x powermate to up the focal length) and use your old dslr (or get one second hand) for deep sky while you save up for the eq setup.
You can get brighter deep space stuff on a dob. Here is some old images i took with a 600d
https://www.flickr.com/photos/803366...57634243605994
I was a beginner then and am sure i could do a lot better these days if i had to.
Also - hopefully not muddying the waters but with the 'new' cmos cameras it is possible to get great results with very short sub exposure
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5...b-m51-and-m57/
- but you will need a lot of space on your hard drive! (and a way to counter balance the extra weight).
cheers