Got back into astronomy this year after a long absence, and have happily been using a Skymax 127 to view and image the planets and the moon over the last few months.
Inevitably, aperture fever is beginning to take hold, and I am considering buying a secondhand second scope more suitable for deepsky objects. I don't really want a Dob, as the size of the tube is likely to present storage problems, and I would like to do some imaging. An SCT springs to mind, but again I don't want anything too large or heavy, as it will not be a permanent setup. Many years ago I had a 12" LX200 and that was a beast of a scope.
So I guess I'm probably looing at something around 8", perhaps on an equatorial mount such as an HEQ5 Pro. I'm told Maks of 7" aperture take forever to cool down. Celestron seem to have manufactured many, many different versions of an 8" SCT, which is rather confusing, but they seem to be a good deal cheaper than Meade.
Has anyone any recommendations in the 8" SCT category, or otherwise that might fit my (rather non-specific) needs? Not looking to spend the Earth, so I'm ruling out 'Edge' versions and similar.
Thanks