Birthday Telescope Upgrade
Hey everyone, usually I just lurk but I wanted to poll the hivemind today and get some insight from folks! Tldr up front followed by further detail for those interest!
tldr: I want to treat myself to a new telescope upgrading from a 5" dob - mostly visual astronomy but also starting my journey in astrophotography. What are your thoughts on a celestron 11" SCT (is the EdgeHD worth the price when JUST starting photography?) What about mounts? Is the AM7 overkill? I have many eyepieces from my dob, but what other accessories might I need? Finder scope? Upgraded diagonal? Living in the southwest, how important is a dew protection?
Detailed version:
I'm almost 40 and want to get myself a bigger telescope! I'm thinking of picking up an SCT either 9.25 or 11" upgrading from my 5" tabletop dob. I have a yard in a bortle 7 are, but can travel about an hour or so to get to bortle 1-2. It won't be frequent journeys but it's possible for me! I mainly do visual astronomy and love sharing the views with my kid and visiting family but I'm also interested to start dabbling in astro-photography (over time, I know that equipment can add up quick). I'm looking to try and keep costs no higher than (Lord forgive me) 6 or 7k. What are your thoughts on scope and equally importantly mount?
I was thinking of the celestron 11" SCT (https://www.highpointscientific.com/celestron-c11-sct-aluminum-optical-tube-with-cge-dovetail-91036-xlt). I'm sure the 9.25" would be an upgrade over my 5" dob, but if I can afford the 11" surely that would be better, right? The 925 is 8lbs lighter and a bit shorter, but I'm still young and strapping enough that that won't be make or break for me - I'd just as gladly haul a 30lb telescope out of the house as a 20lb one. I see the EdgeHD is about 1.2k more than the C11 but my understanding is that the increased price due to the additional work to make the entire image more "flat" so you can get better pictures through it. Sounds nice, but for an amateur only starting their astrophotography journey and mainly still doing visual astronomy it doesn't SEEM like I'm the target audience for that necessarily. Sure nice to have, but without a robust photography setup it would be wasted on someone like me surely? Is my understanding correct here?
The mount is where I REALLY need some help. My dob is obviously all setup with it's tabletop mount and it works great, but I obviously need something if I get the SCT. I was thinking I'd also like to get an equatorial mount and start getting used to that now - my understanding is that if I ever want to take videos/multiple exposures over time to stack in the future I'm gonna need an equatorial mount to adequately track the movements of the stars across the skies - I'd hate to by a mount now "just to have one" and then end up having to buy another one later to replace it, you know? If I can afford it, just get the better one I'll ultimately need.
I'm looking to have a mount that can track a given star/DSO (again for photography eventually, but also just as a cool feature so I don't have to manually track things either), BUT I'd still like to be able to use it like alt/az to swing around and just look at interesting things in the sky (like I currently do with my dob). I understand an equatorial mount isn't strictly required for imaging, but I'd LOVE to take some long exposures of deep sky objects. I had recently seen a review of the AM7 mount and through that found the AM5 (https://www.highpointscientific.com/zwo-am5n-harmonic-drive-equatorial-mount-with-tripod) feels like the 7 might be overkill for me, but maybe the 5 is good? It has a 44lb capacity with counterweights, I'm just wondering if with the 11" SCT that will rather easily be exceeded when I start adding cameras, finder scopes, etc etc.
Finally, accessories - Fully open to recommendations, necessities, nice-to-haves, etc. Is there something I've forgotten or wasn't aware that I'll need? I think I'd have to grab some counterweights (or at least it seems likely to be given my knowledge), eventually I'll need a good camera, but right now if I got a big sct and an equatorial mount, what else would I need to use it? Do I need fans to help it cool down, at 11" I'd think so - can this be mitigated by setting it up in my yard around sunset? Do you guys have recommendations for finder scopes? I have a red-dot sight on my dob and it works well enough to find what I'm looking at but I hear people love the Telrad reflex finder. Do I need a specific type of finder scope in order to use star tracking? I have a bunch of eyepieces from my dob but they're all 1.25" and these SCT's mentioned above are 2", any particular adapters or is it hard to go wrong? I've seen plenty of videos on replacing the diagonal that comes with the telescope, do you have recommendations?
Thank you for reading the detail I'm sorry for the wall of text, I appreciate any and all input even if it's "don't write so much next time!"