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Thanks Dunk.
I think that with my current focus on planetary/lunar/solar the item at the top of my upgrade wishlist is a nice 6 mm planetary eyepiece, probably Lorng Perng or one of their many re-badged clones. As well as lower chromatic aberration, better off axis sharpness and a little more magnification for visual observing this would also give me much more suitable magnification for the simple eyepiece projection/afocal photography I've been dabbling in. The barrel of the little 9 mm eyepiece included with the telescope is too short to clamp my digiscoping adapter to, consequently I've only been able to use the 25 mm which gives me planetary images that are a bit too small for the RX100 camera.
A better wide angle eyepiece would probably be next on the list though so that I can make the most of it when I get to take the telescope somewhere with darker skies. Aside from a few quick looks at the Orion nebula I haven't really tried any deep sky stuff yet, my horribly light polluted suburban Sydney back yard really isn't the ideal place for it.
I did try adding ballast to the tripod spreader plate and alternatively to the tripod legs when I still had the legs extended 6-8" and it didn't seem to make much difference, almost 10 seconds to settle after touching the telescope. With the legs at minimum extension and the tripod pushed firmly down into my lawn the settling time is more like 3 seconds, that I can live with.
A couple more photos from last night using a cheap Bintel x2 Barlow, the included 25 mm eyepiece, digiscoping adaptor, RX100 and AutoStackkert!2:
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