In December 2024, I purchased the Apertura 75Q refractor and was blown away at the high-quality optics and overall build of the scope. With all the wide field, fast optics needs covered, I wanted a longer focal length instrument. I narrowed my search to a 140mm Quad/APO or the Apertura Carbonstar 8"RC.
After a very obsessive time of debating

between the two, and with the helpful advice and input from the folks at HighPoint, I purchased the Carbonstar 8"RC and the 0. 67x reducer. I do not regret it!
Out of the box, its appearance is awesome, the finish of the carbon tube is superb, and the anodized red pre-mounted dove tail bars are a beautiful eye-popping accent! After unboxing, I immediately checked the collimation, and it was slightly out of alignment but was easy to adjust using the Ocal Collimator. The focuser is relatively standard but does come EAF ready. (5 min to attach the ZWO EAF)
First Light was an exciting night! I could not believe that I had clear skies the same day it arrived!! I have attached the first two images (my goto for my first images, M42 of course!). 2nd is Caldwell 49 Rosette Nebula.
Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend this budget-friendly, high-quality optical design for anyone of moderate experience. I love my Apertura Carbon Star 8"RC!

Came as advertised. Good quality. Good price.

Fits perfectly on an Apertura AD8. It works exactly as advertised. The only real downside is that the filter is relatively heavy so you have to re-balance the AD8 when you use the filter (unless you want to spend a lot of time fiddling with tension for the scope). I wound up putting the AD8 almost the limit, but fortunately there are scales so it

doesn't take long to change to/from the filter back to "normal" balance settings.

I have less than half a night's worth of data, but so far, I am very impressed with the performance of the ASI2600MM Duo and Antlia filters.

This is replacing my ASI1600M Pro and Optolong filters. I chose Alnitak as my test target, to give the new camera (and filter set) a trial by fire. I only got about 18 minutes per channel of RGB dat

a, due to a focusing error after meridian flip, but I got enough to see how the 2600 sensor performs against the 1600. There are no "microlensing" artifacts whatsoever. Additionally, the Antlia filters showed no halo around Alnitak.

The color of the stars is also much better than the 1600, taking into account the relatively short integration time on target.

As I was also shooting narrowband with 3nm filters, I used an OAG rather than the Duo's guide camera. However, the Duo camera showed up as a choice in PHD2, no problems.

My one half-night with this camera has made me look forward to the next stretch of good weather. I believe that this is going to produce excellent images.

RGB subs = 180 seconds @ 0 gain, 18 subs per channel
SHO subs = 600 seconds @ 100 gain, 10 subs per channel

The best OTA for the price, f4 very fast, plus easy to collimate

Works great with my 80MM 480FL