[astro_nutt]

Originally Posted by astrogeek

Well I am the friend with the 12" deluxe lightbridge and I must say the optics are excellent, top class when you consider the price. The images that this scope can produce are amazing, and 9 nights out of 10 (Probably more) you wont tell the difference between a mass produced mirror (ie. GSO) or a premium mirror. As was stated before, there are a lot of people here that are doing first class imaging with GSO mirrors. This just goes to show how good mass produced mirrors have become. On the other side of things, ie. everything else in/on the lightbridge, it is a very good scope. Build quality is good, crayford is very nice and the scope looks damn sexy too . I am even impressed with the 2" 26mm Meade QX ep which performs quite well even in this f/5 scope. The scope also packs down nice and small in it's original box and with some ingenuity could probably be made to fit in a smaller box. There are a few little anoyances like the tension brake which is useless and will scratch the alt bearings, the deluxe red dot finder which is too bright even in Melbourne, 6 truss design necessitating rings in a shroud (Not really issue) and slight balancing issues (With 2" Barlow and 2" ep the scope heads south). Really these are very minor issues that can be quickly fixed. Well I've gone a bit off the "how are the optics" topic but I hope it has helped in some way. I think you will be impressed with this scope

Leon

Hear, hear!! astrogeek!!