Nexstar is it for me ?? advice on a mount system

[Lunar Mike]

Hello all !! 
I have owned a C5 in the past but the 5 inch set up on a Nexstar se mount is very attractive. The C5 can be adapted to be a f/10 scope or a f/6.3 with proper adapter, great for wider field viewing and photo work or you can just use it at f/10 for planets , and double stars.a good multipurpse scope. With a wedge I can do astro photo work as well very cool. 

I think I want  the Nexstar SE mount cause you can change optical tubes. I if I want extreme low power wide field views I can buy a 3 ich APO at f5.0  , or I can use the C5 at f/10 to f/6.3 two scopes in one, or if I want more light grasp I can buy a C8 to look at galaxies and nebula in brighter and more detial the planets look better as well. Had a cousin who had a C8 still remember Saturn in this scope like it was yesterday. The C8 also does the magic trick of f/10 or f/6.3. very cool. With certian C8's and I think C5's you can do Fastar a really cool trick as well you can do astro photo work at f/2 thats very atteactive for future endevors. 30 second photos vs 45 min photos. 

What do you think I should do in the future of my needs. I dont need to hear about 2000.00 APO scopes , I hate equetorial mounts completely .Id rather buy the SE mount and then buy a wedge for it to do my basic astro photo work. Besides if I love astro photo work I will probably buy a mount thats legendary for astro photo work later. So I dont need to be inundated with stuff about equetorial mounts that are way out of my price range any ways my price range is 400.00 to 1200.00   . If you have information on other GOTO alt/az mounts I would love to know about them thats the way I m gona go. 

Its really an open book right now Im not gona buy the scope for a year .  So My opinion as to what I want is probably gona change as time goes on . Right now I am engrossed in binocular astronomy learning the craft of star hopping and reaquanting myself with the night sky. I want to go to a semi local astronomy club to see if anyone has this scope and look at it in person to see what I really want . If storage and transportaion and accsess to a good site was not an issue, Id buy a computerized push to dob probably 10 or 12 inch , but then again I could not do any photo work with a dob other than video planet/moon work . SO I thnk the nexstar SE is the system for me versitility, light weight , compact for transport and storage, good optical tubes and a really good wifi app with another adaption. There seems to be alot one can do with the Nexstar system . I think its the way to go for me . What do you think .Thanks happy hunting the Evolution system is out it costs too much for my basic astronomy ambitions. Basic visual and basic astro photo work really its pretty simple the more basic and easier to use the better lets keep this from getting complicated.    
 

[Cosmic Geoff]

The Celestron Nexstar SE mount is not a single mount - it is a range. The smaller one is used on the SE4/5, a larger one on the SE6/8 and a similar and heavier mount AFAIK on the C9.25.  They are not generally available separately - only as part of a package.

I have the SE6/8 mount, which is quite a handy mount for my purposes. It does suffer though from annoying backlash in the gears.  The more upmarket Celestron alt-az GoTo mounts should perform better but I have no personal experience of them.