So far I'm feeling pretty good with the C8. I've gotten the collimation to a point where I'm reasonably happy with it. It's no refractor, but I'm probably spoiled now that I've gotten a taste of the clear stuff (even if it is a little purple-y). That being said I'm in love with my new flip mirror setup. It's well worth the money especially now that I've worked out the focus and can get reasonably close before flipping over to the camera. I'm sure I'll eventually get a guider, but for the time being I'm enjoying the process of learning to image planets without one. Turns out I only get about 2 min per shot of Jupiter before the planet rotation causes the features to blur.
Jupiter on a loop - I have about 7 decent frames and it's looping
back and forth so you can see some of the details.
Here it is with some levels applied to bump up the contrast.
You can't see the moons now, but the planet looks better.
Uranus - it's small and blue, but you can tell it's a planet.
