Thank you all for the advice, it all very useful and certainly gives me something to think about. I'll order myself a copy of the Making Every Photon Count book and read thoroughly!
Sadly at the moment I think the EQ6 mount is out of my budget- or I could afford the mount, but nothing to put on it!
ErlingG-P those photos are amazing! If I'm able to produce anything even a 10th of that quality I'll be a happy man! One more newbie question sorry, you say you improved things with an ADC. what is an ADC?
To start with I think I need to get myself used to exploring the sky, I have a canon 1000D dslr which I'll look at combining with the telescope once I can find my way around, but i can see theres a LOT for me to learn both both for visual and astro photography!