My Xmas Present just arrived

[Roulston]

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"!:eyepop:

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.

[ballaratdragons]

Woo-Hoooooo!!!!

Get out there and wear that mirror out :thumbsup:

[Sausageman]

You must know what is going to happen now.
Clouds :sadeyes: :sadeyes: :shrug:

It seems to happen to everyone who gets new gear.

I hope you enjoy your new scope.

Merry Christmas.

Mike.

[Ric]

Congrats on your new scope, it sounds like a beauty.

It's not looking too good out there at the moment, so you might have to put the champers on ice for another day or so

Cheers

[GrahamL]

wow those 10 " scopes are sure getting cheap to buy .. I'll have to give mine away when I sell it if they get any cheaper.;)

enjoy .. there a great scope that will show you so much :thumbsup:

btw the best bit of work I did on the tension springs was to take them off and put em in a bag in the drawer .. a small rubber backed speaker magnet works much better IMO.

[PCH]

Hi Nightstalker,

don't s'pose you could take a pic and post it ! Of the speaker magnet assembly that you use instead of the springs I mean.

Cheers:thumbsup:

[Roulston]

I havn't seen a clear sky for days, missed the meteor shower the other night and haven't seen a star or even the moon for days.

Just as well, the missus took all my eye pieces to wrap for xmas!!, no clear sky no tempation. Anyway I guess she want's me to have something to open on xmas morning. Following a pissy xmas lunch I dare not stagger around with it on xmas night either. She hae let me put the locking caster wheels on the mount though.

I have stellarium showing what the night of 25 Dec will bring.

Likewise, I'm interested in the use of a magnet as a tensioner.

Cheers, Tony

[ballaratdragons]

Paul & Tony, the magnet doesn't replace the springs. It balances the OTA.

Even though I still use the springs, I also use rubber backed speaker Magnets.

They slide around easily to get balance when you change to heavier or lighter EP's or accessories. Handy if you don't use springs at all.

Here is a pic of my rubber-backed Speaker Magnets. One is flipped over so you can see the rubber backing. (The rubber is just to stop the magnet scratching the paint)

[Roulston]

Thnaks for that, movable counter weights. Great idea.

[PCH]

duh ....:P - now I got it !

Thanks Ken.

[Outbackmanyep]

The Bureau of Meteorology are onto it, they're trying to track down the cause of the cloud mass coming........:lol:
Hope you enjoy your 10", wait till you see some globulars...i remember my first view of Omega Cen through my GSO 10".....blew me away!

:cheers: