Like Ed said, try your kit lens...stop it down a bit, until you can't see any lens inflicted wounds! On a tracking mount with a half decent polar alignment you should be good for 5+ minutes unguided. On a good night, I can get that with the Zenithstar on board.
When it comes to scopes, there are lots of choices. If Taks were cheap, we'd all buy them
but having done some reading around this myself even THEY have their own set of issues. There's no perfect scope.
The Star71 is an interesting recent entrant into the market. It's hard to go wrong with an ED80, especially if the focal length hits the spot. It's a known quantity, proven. But you'd be wanting to upgrade the focuser pretty much straight off and then at f/7.5 the reducer is a good addition.