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Hi Sean,
If you want to get some reasonable and later on, quite good photos, you will need to spend about $1500 on a rig like I have, the 8" reflector on the HEQ5Pro. It is almost at the comfortable limit of the payload capacity of the mount, but if you check my deep sky shots with this rig and firstly a DSLR (unmodded Canon 1000D) and now the Atik 314L+ ($1499 for this camera), plus the guidescope, guidecamera etc etc, you will see what it's capable of.
Now, if you look at what I have spent, its well over $3,000 to get the photos I have recently posted since Xmas last year.....
I have added the first few that I took with just the DSLR on the mount, when it was unguided, but these were only 30 sec shots, stacked (10 of them) to get the photos and the bug to make me want more and better results......
You could start with a basic mount like an EQ3, but you will find it will be struggling to cope with longer exposures without blobby stars if you dont have exceptional polar alignment, so the Heq5Pro is much more forgiving if it is lightly loaded, or well set up.
Have a think about it, if you see some of my history by searching here for posts I have started in the beginner's astrophotography and then later in the deep space forums, you will be able to see what, how much and why I spent my money on to get to this point as well as some of the frustrations along the way.
I am not trying to discourage you, just simply wanting to make sure you don't buy something and find it isnt going to suit the purpose.
I hope this helps
edit: I have added my latest (and best) Trifid with the Atik as a comparison to shot #2, which I took with the dslr just after I got the scope in 2011.
Cheers
Chris
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