Taking a telescope of 5" or more aperture to an eclipse can be difficult but the views and photographs can be very worthwhile. Or so I have heard. I must confess to having never brought anything larger than an f/10 4.25" reflecting telescope. That was for the 1972 and 1973 eclipses viewed from on board ships. The view was excellent using a 1" eyepiece (about 45x).

Larger telescopes tend to have longer effective focal lengths and may not show the entire ring of the moon. These are best suited for looking at the chromosphere, corona streamer details, and prominences. Or you can attempt to see stars behind the corona but near the sun.

An f/10 8" Schmidt Cassegrain has an effective focal length of 80" or 2,000mm. This is about the maximum size that can be used to photograph the entire lunar disk and still see some of the surrounding solar atmosphere. A 35mm camera will barely hold the lunar image hence very little of the corona can be photographed. On the other hand it is possible to image stars through the corona, do spectral imaging, and obtain closeup views of prominences in white light.

"Light buckets" are not needed for a total solar eclipse. The corona is very bright and you will not be interested in deep space objects during the eclipse event. I can only imagine that very large apertures will only diminish the quality of the view and unless you are engaged in scientific studies requiring such optics (such as flash spectra or detecting gravitational effects of starlight near the solar disk) the expense of bringing them along may not be worth it. For the ease of travel and best view, a smaller telescope is the winner with a good pair of binoculars right there too.

In 2024 an eclipse will cross the lawn of Perkins Observatory here in central Ohio. I expect that we (the Columbus Astronomical Society will have a fleet of large telescopes along the path!

Perspective: The 1991 total solar eclipse path crossed over some of the largest telescopes in the world located in Hawaii. There was a documentary showing the preparations and other scientific work the observatory astronomers were engaged in at the time. My favorite scene from this documentary is when the astronomers all run out of the control booth during totality to view the eclipse through a 3.5" Questar telescope.