5" ETX

Ive been recently doing research on the celestron 5", and 5" ETX. Eyepieces, and what mag I could get out of the fewest, ect. One thing Ive found I dont seem to like on the celestron is the axis on RA, and dec cant be unlocked and manually moved it seems.. Is this true? This has switched my near decision in a scope purchase to my next choice which is the ETX 5". Ive owned A lot of scopes in the past from Astro physics to Takahashi, obsession, several lx200s. Im broke as you can be these days, and Im going to have to settle for a $1200 or so total purchase thats fairly portable as Im on dayshift now rather than 2nd which is when I thrived in the hobby. Im having the hardest time. I want to mount a pier in my backyard with a homemade wedge, so I can carry this out, hang it, and be done. Any advise on either of these scopes. Seems if the computer went out on the ETX I could at least unlock it and use it without temporarily.
Tony.

And why does Anacortes not sell celestron products anymore? Seems a lot has changed in the last few years I was out.
T.

The axes unlock on my older ETX125 (circa Y2K). Not sure how useful it would be for actual observing. The long f.l. and small FOV of the ETX would seem to make precise aiming and some kind of slow motion control a requirement.

Besides the computer, my unit came with a hand control box. I've used that much more than the computer. It allows fast and slow slewing on both axes (using the motors) and, if on a wedge, has a mode that will allow it to track on the polar axis. The tracking on mine is fairly precise. If polar alignment is decent, it'll keep an object in the FOV for several minutes.

You might want to ask if they still come with the hand control box.

The ETX is quite a comedown from AP and Tak. I haven't used my ETX since getting into APO refractors. They're quite decent optically, but 'No more widefield views for you!'
Bob