Fork Mounts, Equatorial Wedges & Astrophotography?

Hey all, I've been looking at the variety of scopes out there with an alt-az
fork mount, and available equatorial wedge (like the Meade
EXT-70/90/105/125, similar models from Celestron, etc.)

Now, my understanding is that one big problem with alt-az mounts that track
is for long-exposure astrophotography - while it will follow the rotation of
the target around Polaris, it won't deal with the image appearing to revolve
in the viewfinder, and therefore creating a streaking affect on film. Is
this something that using an equatorial wedge will take care of?

From what I've read, the equatorial wedge allows these scopes to rotate only
on their azimuth, removing the need to change their elevation on their
"altitude" axis. Are they basically being set up so they're on the same
plane as the objects you're observing? If so, are they then viewing that
target as if it were moving in a straight line across the sky, with no
apparent revolution?

Basically, here's the deal. I'm fairly new to astronomy, and
astrophotography, and was considering picking up something with a better
aperture than the 50mm f/1.7 camera lens I've been using on the Maxxum 5 I
recently picked up. While it's a pretty decent lens, it only has a 29mm
maximum aperture. While wide-field images of a few seconds are pretty easy
to do (I've got some older ones with an X-700 up on my site, but I've got
some better ones I took with the Maxxum waiting to be scanned), getting
narrower fields of view and better magnification isn't really workable with
my current setup, which my eclipse photos show pretty handily - the moon is
tiny, because I had only 100mm of focal length.

So, my goals are something with better light gathering, that might help me
image some of the really faint objects out there. Tracking would be nice,
to get star fields without star trails, and maybe get things like nebulas,
galaxies, etc. Some level of magnification would be nice, when I'm trying
to take pics of the planets, or the Moon, etc.

My price range basically sucks at the moment. I can probably spring up to,
oh, $300 or so over the next couple months. More than that, and we're
talking 1-2 months additional per $100. I understand this means I won't
have the best gear out there. Heck, I'm looking at tepid, mediocre gear,
most likely. I understand and accept that - this isn't going to be the last
scope I buy, and financial issues will not be an issue forever - a year or
two from now, $1000-$2000 for a rig probably won't concern me.

So, my options:

First, would be something like the EXT-90, waiting a couple of extra months
or so to do that. This is where that whole equatorial wedge combined with a
fork mount comes into play.

Next would be something similar to the Celestron Firstscope 114EQ. Of
course, I've never used a German equatorial before, so I'm not sure how the
learning curve is. For one thing, what do you do when the majority of the
things you want to look at are in the opposite direction from Polaris?
Example: most times I have available to observe, Orion or the Pleiades (two
of my favorites to look at), aren't near Polaris - I'd have to point the
scope in the opposite direction.

Now, option three is just....weird. Anyone have any experience with Rubinar
lenses or telescopes (examples he
http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/m...ras_lenses.htm and also
he http://www.lzos.ru/tovnp/teles/teleng.htm) - they make 1000 mm focal
length f/10 and 500 mm focal length f/5.6 Maksutov-Cassegrain lenses that,
with an adaptor, will fit my camera easily. Both have available adaptors to
let you hook up eyepieces and use them as telescopes. Combine one with a
German equatorial from Orion, for example, a motor for tracking, etc, and I
can get a scope with halfway-decent magnification and a tracking mount for a
good price. Of the two, I'd lean more towards the 500mm, even though it's a
bit smaller in aperture, because it'd also work well in daylight as a
supertelephoto lens for my camera, whereas the 1000mm is a bit too big for
that. This option's nice because I can do it piecemeal, and get out the
door at a fairly low price.

OK, I think I've gone on long enough. Any advice would be welcome.

--Jason
http://www.websown.com/~jdonahue/astro/astrophoto.htm