Goodonya Hemi ... that monsoon has come all the way to Brissie!
A bit late to this post, but I reckon you'll love the Baader zoom. I used to do visual astro and ended up just using it as the one and only EP. Now I tend to do live-view camera astro but alignments are still done using the Baader zoom. Its great to start out low power to find the alignment star, then zoom right in to 8mm, defocus and centre the doughnut to align. Then refocus, zoom out and go to the next alignment star. Very quick. Its a top bit of kit. You'l love it.