Yep im another one of those poor astro photography guys.
At the moment I am gathering people together for astrophotographers in WA. I own a f4.7 newt and collimate it quite easily, but as Andrew said, auto collimators are the way to go. Please do yourself the favor of not getting a laser.. they are bad in my honest opinion.
I keep getting people say that i must have great optics, truth is I know how to collimate my telescope properly. Have a bit of look at my webpage for some of the work that i do.
Also I wouldn't bother with a modified web cam, it will waste your time effort and money... a dslr is the next step up and although i don't normally recommend them as they have too much thermal noise. They are a good first camera so to speak ( I cut my teeth on them ). If you want to do it right first time out, get yourself a peltier cooled CCD camera, then you will be working with first class data straight out of the box and not smashing your head against the wall.
Andrew has a lot of knowledge when it comes to optics so (sorry andrew for this
) milk him for all you can hehehe.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to give me a message.
Brendan