After being annoyed by the standard finderscope supplied by Celestron with their CPC series of scopes, I decided to splash out on one of those cheapie Bosma 80mm x 500mm f6.3 refractor scopes. It comes with a few bits and pieces (not overly useful for me) such as a camera tripod, a couple of EPs, a moon filter, a solar film filter and a carry bag.
I spent a good deal of this afternoon and early night with it in the courtyard checking out the moon and a few of the brighter stars that poked through the gaps between the roofs. The scope is pretty decent, there's a bit of colour aberration towards the edges with the provided plossls (10 & 25mm) but the 12.5mm illuminated reticle I have was acceptable and the Televue plossls (8, 11, 15 & 32mm) and Meade super widefield EPs (18 & 24.5mm) I have improved the scope a goodly amount, not award winning but decent.
I tried some of my 2" Ba'ader EPs using a 2" SCT diagonal but I was unable to get focus as the size of the diagonal was making the light path too long. I guess some sort of stubby diagonal might solve that but I'm not worried as I'm not going to be putting any 2" EPs in it.
I thought about trying my f6.3 reducer corrector in it as a laugh but common sense prevailed
Next I spent a good hour and a half sorting out and attaching it to my C925. I had to diddle with the mounting rings a bit and it's not a perfect job but it seems strong and rigid and there is lots of adjustment in the rings for alignment purposes. The C925 is able to drive the scope and extra weight with seemingly no problems.
I have yet to try the whole system out in a session but will give it a go over the next few days, weather permitting, even if all I do is a basic alignment of refractor and C925 and some motor drive checks.
Here are some piccies...
Cheers,
Simon