My viewpoint on SCT's Vs the newt is exactly the same as johns. I looked at Perth observatories 14" meade SCT on M83.... I was more than dissapointed i looked at the scope and went what a POS..... my 10" f4.7 is clearly able to resolve the dustlanes and fine details in the arms. the 14" was barely able to resolve there was a galaxy there other than a smudge.
Photography possibly but you better have some damn fine skills at guiding at f10! closing in on 3000mm FL, start really looking at Adaptive optics and a whole raft of other things. at 1200mm
guiding is more forgiving and you don't need AO.... So still the 10" newt is in my opinion far superior in Value and performance.
Casstony, while i agree that the light though put and technologies are miles ahead of what they used to be a GSO/SW dob is what 500 bucks.? a XLT 11" is 5000. Where as a Orion optics CT10" with 1/10 PV ultra grade optics is possibly 3500 once imported.It weighs less than a SCT, gives far brighter and far more resolution than a SCT and for astrophotography will do some increadable things see Mike Sidionios 12 AG... same optics. Compare apples with apples
not Hyundai's with Farrari's