New Scope

[kustard]

I had been umming and ahhing about getting myself something bigger than my C9.25 for a while and thanks to a bit of savings and an overtaxed payout from last year I started looking at the Orion XX14g GoTo Truss Telescope. After reading the review posted by Rick about his Orion XX14i Intelliscope I was happy enough to go ahead and order the beast.

Well it arrived today and after two car trips to the astro shop to get it home I unboxed it and assembled it. It looks sweet as and I can't wait for this rain and cloud (sorry about the weather in Sydney, I know I'm to blame this time) to go away so I can test it out in the courtyard.

Meanwhile, you can take a look at the unboxing and assembling on my website:
http://astronomy.kustard.org/?Observations:Equipment_List:The_Or ion_XX14g_GoTo_Truss_Tube_Telescope

Cheers,
Simon

[strongmanmike]

Looks like a beauty Simon, 14" is a great size and sure to bring you some great views :thumbsup:. Be interested to see if the tracking movement is visible in the eyepiece?

I wouldn't mind a visual scope to bang about with while my imaging ring is plugging away...

Mike

[AG Hybrid]

Want! Looks heavy though.

[kustard]

Thanks Mike, with the scope are some shims that can be used if you get the primary tube assembly rubbing against the side of the base that can cause jittery movement in the scope as it tracks. My scope seems to have a decent amount of clearance but I'll be keeping an eye on it just in case.

Adrian, the scope completely breaks apart into 4 sections, the primary tube (not overly heavy once you take the counterweights off even with the primary mirror still in), the secondary tube (very light), the trusses (feather weight) and the base which disassembles into a flat pack. The turntable part of the base is probably the heaviest and most unwieldly part of the whole scope mostly because of it's size.

[AG Hybrid]

Oh yeah. I forgot those things break down into tiny pieces like Lego.

[kustard]

We have first light!

Nothing overly fancy, the moon (at about 93%) which looked mighty fine and very bright even with a decent moon filter on it. Not really going to be using the scope for the moon so let's just leave it at that ;)

I then did a manual slew over to Sagittarius, did a proper EZ Finder alignment on Kaus Australis (see note below) and then managed to find both M54 and M70 (M22 was unfortunately hidden behind the roof of the house). Both globulars looked fuzzy but reasonably well defined considering the amount of light pollution about.

It took about 15 minutes to assemble and about 10 minutes to disassemble. I didn't play around with the GoTo part of the scope, I just used the AutoTracking feature of the controller.

Notes:
1) Being a first time user of a dob I was a little bit surprised when I noticed 4 spikes on the bright stars I looked at. I understand this is caused from the spider holding the secondary mirror in place. Everything else looked nice and sharp considering the evening sky was trashy.

2) The initial collimation I did in the garage seemed quite spot on though I will be getting the help of some most learned friends to confirm or laugh at my n00bness next time I get to take it out.

3) The Azimuth movement when manually pushing the scope about has a loud-ish squeak so maybe some bigger teflon padding is required or maybe it'll wear in and eventually go away. It did seem easy enough to push it about, a little stiff but not hard and the whole scope felt very rigid and structurally sound.

4) The SynScan AZ Controller is good though I'm not used to having to input my location and time, the CPC9.25 does that all for me automatically, so maybe if I get some more $$$ I might grab one of the GPS units for it.

5) When slewing the scope with the controller there seems to be a half second to 1 second lag between pressing the button and the scope actually moving, again the CPC9.25 was very instant in this respects so just something to get used to I guess. The actual motors for the scope are not as loud as the CPC9.25 but they are not servo-cat quiet so I guess this scope will be heard by those nearby ;)

Thanks for reading to my dribble.

Cheers,
Simon