[Tasastro (Bill)]

Celestron SCT's are usually very good optically, however I would not recommend the CPC mount. I have had a CPC 800 for some time and recently deforked it because of the difficulty of setup. The mount and OTA together are very awkward to pick up and carry and any mishandling can easily result in a smashed telescope. Also the goto and guiding performance is not very good. I can now carry the OTA safely with one hand. I use it on a NEQ6 head, which although heavy is very easily carried separately.

My recommendation would be a Celestron Edge HD 8" with a focal reducer for deep-sky astrophotography on a Skywatcher az eq5 or az eq6 mount. That way you have the easy setup of alt/az for visual or the eq for astrophotography.