semitte

I'm blown away by all of you guys' help!  I got back on this evening hoping that someone had responded -- but I got a lot of good info here!  Thanks to all of you!!

I'm fulfilling a life-long dream of getting a good telescope to see the planets.  I have a Celestron NexStar 8se, with both a 40mm lens, and a 8-24mm lens; but both of them cause the planets to look very small, with no detail or color.  Yes, I can see Saturn's rings, but it's just a small image that I feel I could get using binoculars.  What am I doing wrong??