Well the wait is over. It seemed like an age since I ordered it, but it was only last week.
But the wait is over and my new scope is assembled and ready for it's first light.
Imaging my surprise to myself, after not only buying my own present, my wife said go an get the one you want and she will pay
, within reason, and after expecting my new 8" dob to get here, I was a bit surprised to find / remember......... I had ordered a 10"!
Anyway, first impressions of the GSO dob from "Telescopes and Astronomy" in Adelaide are great. The deluxe version, fan, decent focuser, 50mm finder and two plossi's seemed like very good value for less than $600.
Assembled in 20 minutes and a quick collimation check and alignment of the finder and all looks good.
I am waiting an a laser collimator to turn up, but the rough order of magnitude check of collimation shows no obvious mis-alignment, only a full instrument based check will confirm it though. No dust, stratches or shipping damage, well packaged.
The only issue will be that with my large Hyperion 8-24mm zoom eye piece the tension will need some more strength.
The 10" is a bit bigger than i had envisaged, but getting in and out of the house seemed to work without breaking my back, but some casters will be installed this weekend.