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The only problem with what you propose is that your nice expensive 80mm telescope would be pretty useless for astronomy on your tripod at anything other than low power.
There used to be an easy solution, namely the Celestron Delux Slow-Motion control, which you'd attach to your tripod, and then attach the telscope to the slow motion control, with which it was easy to keep the telescope on an object at 180X. My fluid pan tripod would always slide when the telescope was aimed high, so I used a plain mechanical head tripod instead. Unfortunately, that slow motion control unit is no longer made.
Orion do make their version of the slow-motion control, and it is sold by Bintel. Unfortunately, it is nowhere near as good as the Celestron unit. It has an extra altitude feature which always slides with the telescope aimed overhead, no matter how hard you tighten the knob. I glued it shut with a piece of sand paper between the two surfaces to stop that feature working, which stopped the sliding. That worked, but the unit still vibrates a lot, so that when keeping the telescope on an object at 180X, I am forever adjusting the knobs to bring the planet to the edge of the field, then having to take my hands off and waiting for the vibration to die down as the planet crosses the field. So, it still works, but nowhere near as well as the sturdier Celestron unit did.
I don't know about the newest premium Erect Image diagonals, but the ones I have were premium in their time. They aren't as good for high power views on the planets as regular diagonal (some fine detail is lost), but they are usually fine for low power terrestial views.
Regards,
Renato
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