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Hi Nick,
Lots of good advice here but there is a bit being left out given that what you want to do is deep space imaging.
The other things to consider for long exposure are guiding, the type of guider you choose will dictate to some extent how long the exposures you can do.
While you can happily setup an EQ5 or NEQ6 pro goto mount with a reasonably fast newt or largish refractor and start imaging deep space you will find that very soon you will be wanting more accuracy to correct those little drift errors that are giving you egg shaped or elongated stars.
Having said that I operate on a similar budget to you by the sound of it I also have an NEQ6 Pro mount.
Now you'll be wanting to guide the whole shebang to help you get nice round stars so depending on the main scope you choose will determine what guiding you use.
Options for this and a common one is to use a second small scope like an Orion short tube 80mm with a suitable guide camera.
(check out Bintel link on the side of this page to give you an idea of cost there)
If you wind up with a Newt or a SCT type scope you can go for an "on axis" or "off axis" or for that matter the ST80 option as above.
There are lots of combinations of camera's, scopes, guide scopes and cameras for them.
Given that you will be using your SLR to image with possibly your best bet will be the second scope for guiding like the ST80 guider.
NEQ6 Pro is a great well proven mount.
For deep space a scope with a focal length of 1500mm or longer is good and with your SLR will give you a field of good size for deep space.
An example is a GSO RC8 with 1624mm focal length and SLR with APS C size sensor will give you a field size of approx 50 x 30 arc minutes.
Translated to something more recognizable you will fit a full moon in nicely with a bit to spare and so with solar filter the sun as well the same.
Deep space you will get something like the lovely big Galaxy of NGC253 in almost a full frame picture.
So for around the $3500 you can get the NEQ6 pro mount a GSO RC8 f8 and an Orion ST80 guider package and that will give you a bloody good start with the need for little else.
A great wide field imager scope is the Skywatcher ED80 and that is good for large Nebula like Carina and or the great Orion Nebula for example and it's also very good for doing Galaxy clusters.
Wether you pick this sort of gear up new or second hand well that's up to you how long you want to wait for second hand stuff to come up for sale but even at new prices they are quite reasonable at the moment.
Bintel or Andrews are good suppliers for new.
I hope this helps with your choices.
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