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Hi Matt,
Glad to hear that you have worked out how collimate your scope.
With a scope of reasonable aperture the seeing from your observing location will almost certainly determine how well objects will resolve.
Unless you can observe at altitude you are not likely to get near the theoretical limit of your scope.
When observing DSO's low to medium magnification is the go and after a few years of observing, you will probably have a whole new outlook on those faint fuzzy objects.
You have to learn how to eek out detail within them, use averted image to observe them with the most sensitive part of your vision, make sure you are dark adapted and that there is no white light in your vicinity.
Definitely don't try and use a laptop computer, even with a red screen and expect to see faint and delicate detail. With the longer focal length of the C8 I would have thought 10 and 13 mm FL eyepieces would be too much magnification for general DSO observing.
I have a 16" F4.5 Newt and most of my DSO work is with a 14mm series 4000 Meade UW, in my scope that delivers 130x, if I want a wider field I use a 31mm Nagler at 59x or if I want a bit more magnification I use a 9mm Nagler at 203x. For high magnification on the planets I use 6mm and 4mm Orthoscopic eyepieces at 304x and 457x respectively.
With many DSO's it is far better to observe a smaller brighter image than a bigger dimmer image.
Just a few thoughts
Cheers
Trevor
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