It was indeed quite expensive gear. If I recall right it was in the order of a couple of months pay for me back then. I need to drag out my old slides and convert them to digital but I might find they are not as good as I fondly imagine. When I mentioned them to the wife she muttered something about "those fuzzy oval shaped things" and they weren't galaxies
For the CCD I made a bit of a snap decision to take advantage of my employer's generous retirement gift offer. It's an Atik 420 which seems to fit the bill pretty well but time will tell.
I do have a guide scope - Vixen 60mm f12 refractor of the same vintage but I think it puts a bit too much load onto the mount so a guide camera sounds like a good idea to look into.
Right now I'm just waiting for some clear skies to try everything out in earnest.