Excellent answer. Thanks.
Personally, I'm more keen on steady tracking than large weight carrying capacity.
I notice that your sig. states "Celestron CGEM". Any opinions about CGEM vs CGEM Pro tracking performance (at lower weight payloads)?
Whatever the raw tracking capability of an LX800 mount, I guess that the claim of +/- 1 arc sec tracking combined with built-in guiding is the standard for comparison (i.e. performance with guiding factored in).
As a family guy, my personal struggle is to make darn sure that, at the very least, a large hobby investment upgrade really delivers.
I sank many night hours years ago into developing my own telescope control guiding/image capture software, complete with flexure/drift compensation attempts. My fork/wedge Meade 8" LX-200 really delivers near the ecliptic (10-20 min subs with round stars), but really struggles with DEC closer to the north or south horizons.
Any "bonus answers" on how an equ. might cope much better than a fork/wedge closer to the horizons?
