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Hi Kieken
Various newsgroups that I frequent have sad tales of users who purchased "cheaper" mounts and they all seemed to end up being very frustrated when the mount did not perform to their expectations.
I wouldn't want to put anyone off long exposure 35mm film, DSLR astro-photography or ccd imaging, but if you want to image DSOs and achieve the kind of results that someone like Eddie Trimarchi does, then it usually requires the more up-market, established (=expensive) mounts, plus an apprenticeship in getting everything to work together (mount, camera, guiding, etc).
Even using my Vixen GP or GPDX with a 4" refractor that has a relatively short focal length of 918mm, there have been times when I just wanted to throw in the towel when you encounter one of those nights when "things just don't seem to work".
I'm not sure if I would have persisted with imaging if I had encountered the insurmountable problems of trying to make an "inadequate" mount work for me. That is not to say it cannot be done. It just comes down to how much time and tweaking you want to invest and what are acceptable results for you.
Hope that helps
Cheers
Dennis
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