For most of us, easily, an 8-inch Newtonian is for hunting deep space objects - "faint fuzzies" - the globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way and then the other galaxies beyond our own.
In the Books discussion, i wrote up Thomas Watson ("desertstars") stories of his entrance into the hobby. He now has an 8-inch Newtonian on an equatorial mount. But he learned a lot from a 60-mm refractor on a rickety tripod. For most of us, easily, an 8-inch Newtonian is for hunting deep space objects - "faint fuzzies" - the globular clusters orbiting the Milky Way and then the other galaxies beyond our own. But he used then (and uses now) this same telescope for binary stars and planets, both of which would be ideal for a smaller, "long tube" refractor such as a 4-inch with a 1000mm focal length, the ones we call "planet killers."