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Hi Murat
For the dollars you are talking about the go to SCTs are going to leave you with small aperture, and in this caper aperture rules. Having a 12" dob and suffering from some light pollution myself, I know that a lot can be done with a scope of this type. You mention serious photography. You will find most serious astro imagers these days use refractors on GEM mounts rather than fork mounted SCTs which are more likely to be found on wedges in permanent observatories.
I would look at 2 ways of going
1) a 12" dob which can be picked up for around $1k these days and spend the rest of you budget on good eyepieces, specifically Televue Naglers and or Panoptics and a really good set of charts. The current "Gold Standard" is Uranometria 2000 which will set you back about $350 for the complete 3 vol set
2) Get a smaller Go To dob say 10" and get some good EPs
Malcolm
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