Seems like longer the focal length of your scope the more objects you'll have but the more difficult imaging is in general. Dave lane just got a killer shot on his new newtonian, it's got a huge FOV so some objects are really nice like the viel nebula, california nebula, etc.

an SCT is good, you might want to take a look at the RC's as well. You know, the eyeball can adjust better than the CCD, so I'd lean on the side of getting something that will be solid for photography. Just my 2 cents, betcha a lot of disagreement from others happens. Everyone has their angles and strategies to be sure, but everyone has a refractor and everyone uses their refractor as a backup scope. You might want to consider one of those, it's sort of the perfect utility scope.

paramount MX or ME!!!!!

I have a CGEM, and a CGE pro, finally got a paramount. The problem with this hobby is you buy what you can afford alway and wind up having to continually upgrade. Finally, this year I just said screw it and bought the best of everything so that I never need to spend money again. I've got a cGEM and a CGE pro sitting in my garage at this point becuase of all this upgrading, and an 8 inch RC and 11 inch SCT. Wish I had just went big off the bat, saved ten thousand bucks I bet.