Tonight was the first time the 8" had been mounted on my EQ6 outside of the house... and whilst the sky only stayed clear for around 20 mins, I am happy to say that the EQ6 was worth every cent!!
after alignment, I wacked in the 30mm ep, grabbed the hand controller and went for something I had never seen before. Centaurus A. She whirred into action! once It stopped, I noticed the eye-piece location was... less than optimal. pointing almost directly upwards at around 6'2" off the deck... Hrmm... I went digging throug the garage, and found a wooden foot stool that I made in year 8 at school (and hadnt used in the 9 years since.) It has finally proved usefull... giving me 1ft extra height, I peered into the eyepiece with much anticipation, and there it was... Cent A wasn't dead center, but it was pretty close... I cant rave on about the view, as to be honest, I could only really make out the halo slightly with the darker lane going through the center... A first for me.
I then went to my most favored object to observe, Jupiter.. a quick look through the 30mm ep just to see where abouts it was.. I centered it using the hand controller, then switched out the 30mm for my 10mm + 2x barlow. Seeing wasnt the best as Jupiter was only at 27°. But what gripped me was the fact that I could simply stand there and observe without continiously nudging the ota... just stood there, and peered at Jupiter for 4 minutes or so and let the EQ6 do its thing....
For me.. that was about the highlight of my astronomy to date... (not counting the first time I saw Jupiter or Saturn..) Just observing with nothing on my mind but the subject.. no 'oop... time to the nudge 'a' roo' just stand there and gaze!
Fantastic!
Just for a check, I put in my ToUcam + extention + 3x barlow to see how long jupiter stayed on the chip for... with the dob, i get 5.8 seconds. with the EQ6, 5 or 6 minutes seems closer..
(although at 27° it looked more like a bowl of red jelly than jupiter)
Clouds rolled in thick and fast, so I promptly parked the scope, took the laptop/OTA/Battery/controller etc. back inside where any possible rain cant get to my precious gear.... put a heavy duty sailors spray jacket over the mount head (covers right from the dovetail adapter down over the top of the tripod including counterweights) and then slipped a plastic garbage bag over the top for extra protection... Hopefully this cloud moves off so I can have some more fun later.
Thats enough out of me..
Alex.