For AP you can rather buy a good ED or APO refractor. Avoid the much cheaper achros as they have too much color errors for AP.
Look on
this page to get idea of prices.
For about $1000-$1500 one can get a good ED80. I have an ED110 on a Vixen SP (equivalent to a SW EQ5) which works very good for AP.
For scopes under 5kg (or SLR+telephoto) even a $600
Star Adventurer suffices.