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I've owned several mounts, Meade LX90, Vixen Sphinx, Mountain Instruments MI250, Tak NJP and Paramount ME.
I often see good images with decent guiding and they used an EQ6 so they must good bang for your buck.
In my experience the Meade and the Vixen weren't up to the job to do autoguided imaging.
The MI250 was but I found it complex and fiddly. Mainly the Gemini system which is a good system but it is "relatively" complex to learn.
For example you have to set limits for the slews to stop the mount from hurting the scope. I set mine several times but would often get failures to slew because I was trying to violate the slew limits when I was nowhere near them.
Obviously I was doing something wrong but the point is it wasn't obvious and a little bit not user friendly. I am sure there are others who'd disagree and love the system. In some ways it is quite similar to a Meade hand controller system with its start routines etc.
I had to also do many star synchs to get the go-tos even remotely accurate.
Then I got the Tak NJP and it was heaven. Simple, just works, reliable and super well made. One star synch and bang you can go-to to anywhere and get the object on the screen of a DSLR.
I think the NJP was very good up to about 25kg load and 1300mm focal length. Longer was starting to show the PE a bit. PE is about 5 arc secs or so perhaps as much as 7 but I think its lower - more like between 3 and 5. As Marcus said the PE is smooth as well.
Now using a Paramount ME most times (NJP I use at my dark site) I like the fact that it also is super user friendly - even more so than the Tak.
I also like the integration of the mount with the various software like the Sky 6, CCDsoft and their own Precision PEC software and the accurate pointing tool T-Point.
The Paramount also has what is called Direct Drive where your single USB cable connection to the mount controls both the mount and the autoguider so no need for a separate autoguiding cable - I like that.
Also the PME has a home position. If you ever get lost you simply send it to its home position and now you know where you are again. Very smart.
I think these added software and more advanced electronics (Temma II is a very basic electronic controller with no features at all for the user)
mean you can tweak your mount to perform better and get a better and better result as you learn it. The only thing you can do with your Tak really is to make sure the Polar Alignment is more accurate and that your balance is accurate and there is no cable drag.
If you have that sort of budget I would instead recommend a Paramount MX for $8500 that is currently the best value for sophistication on the market. Next choice would be an AP mount - an AP900 or perhaps a Mach 1 GTO. Not sure if the Mach 1 GTO can handle the heavy TOA scope - perhaps but it may be near the limit.
Tak mounts are great but as you can see a number of guys using them are switiching to Paramounts because they are simply awesome mounts,
capable of remote control, more sophistication and more software control that gets you the round stars at 3 metres that you would struggle to achieve with anything less.
Problem is they are not shipping yet. So perhaps a 2nd hand AP900 and resell it when the MX's are shipping regularly. You won't lose hardly anything on resale so you get to use it nearly for free.
Mind you if you can pick up a Tak mount for cheap 2nd hand it would handle the TOA130 easily. Not sure an EM200 could handle it, but EM400 or the earlier model the NJP could easily.
I don't know a lot about EQ6 and its variants but one thing for sure is the base periodic error is likely to be 15+ arc seconds or more.
If it is smooth I guess the autoguider corrects it. I believe it also can run PE correction which may get that down significantly. Others could advise you about this. That would be the thing I would check on - what is its PE and how well does it guide out or PEC out?
That is the MAIN thing with mounts after weight bearing capacity.
Greg.
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