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I have a Meade SN - 8 inch variety. Its a good and fass OTA - f4. If you are looking for an entry level scope for astrophotography, this is a good choice, especially if your mount is so-so.
It suffers from coma so you will need a corrector - I use a Baader MPCC. The coma is not as pronounced as for a Newt but you do still need to correct for it.
Bear in mind that its a heavy beast - with an Orion short-tube 80mm guidescope and a heavy camera, it takes its toll on the EQ6 it sits on. Don't go near the Meade stock mount - its really not up to the heavy OTA.
Collimation is not too bad - I use an Orion laser and that yields satisfactory results.
Bear in mind its a modified Newt, so it can be a pain to balance.
The stock focuser isn't great - I changed to a JMI EV focuser which I have since motorised.
For quite a while I used a DSLR and it performed quite well. I've since moved on to a SBIG ST8300M. There is a reasonable amount of vignetting with this camera - I doubt there is much that can be done with it on that front - it does yield a v wide field of view so you can always crop out the dark corners or correct with flats.
Overally, I am happy with it. I've recently bought a Televue Powerview x2 and it works a treat with it (despite the temptation of the SCTs that keep cropping up in the For Sale section).
Hope that helps
Pete
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