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I bought a 9.25" Celestron on a goto Alt-Az fork mount. It was not my first scope but I had been effectively out of the hobby so long that it may as well have been. A bit outside your budget I know as they run to more like $3500 for the basic package in that size BUT!
It does show the beauty of a goto mount. Aligning it is a breeze and I have often aligned it on the first three stars I could see as the sky darkened and it has held that alignment all night (Until 4AM one night at a star party when I finally had to get some sleep to be fit to drive home afterwards)
The goto and tracking make it a breeze although I have a few favourite objects and often manually slew the scope to them before letting the mount take over to track them. The biggest beauty of it is the tracking which really does make the experience a happy one. Align the mount, slewt to whatever you want, slip in the appropriate eyepiece and enjoy the view for as long as you like.
If it was my first scope rather than my second I would probably have had a fit of the sensibles and bought a goto dob as large as I could fit in my car.
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