Observing with a new Vixen tonight

[Tropo-Bob]

Finally the weather is decent and I am off to the Atherton Tablelands to put a new 115s Vixen through it's paces.
The second Vixen (102ED) has a Ethos 13mm ep giving a 2 degree field of view; quite a finderscope!
The two scopes align perfectly.

This is the first time that I have tried to insert photo- so touching wood!!!

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[Kunama]

Hope you have a great 'first light'. Very nice looking system. How is the mount coping?
Haven't seen the sun in Canberra all day so no viewing tonight this way.

[Tropo-Bob]

Well the first dark-sky venture with the new scope went well.
I quickly commenced using the 13mm Ethos in the main scope. Stars were points to the edge of the field and having 68x with over 1.4degrees of field and the newness of the scope, made this a no-brainer for cruising around cherry picking the best sights. This is a great scope for checking out the LMC and cruising around the Milky Way looking at clusters and nebulas. The more memorable sights of the evening were the small planetary nebulae in M46 and the trio of galaxies M65, M66 & NGC 3628.

The mount was smooth and carried the weight well, but the legs sometimes prevented me from looking at altitudes considerably short of zenith.