Well I am exhausted and cold but have pretty much finished everything I intended to do tonight to finish testing the new scope, and further calibrate my mount to give me spot on pointing accuracy with this new long focal length scope.
The 8" f12 Classical Cassegrain is great for splitting Doubles, Triplets, and obviously all bright objects like the planets, and it even managed to show me Pluto tonight. Great planetary reach and should be pretty good at planetary imaging using frame stacking, when I get to that. It also does a pretty good job on bright compact clusters, with a 30mm 2" eyepiece. Not so good on anything dim and nebulous, so galaxies, Omega Centauri, and the usual nebula targets like M8, M20, M16, etc. But i do have my f5 Newt for that sort of work which is where it shines.
I will be getting some rest for the next few nights but maybe back out by the New Moon, giving the Newt a run. Hope the good weather continues for those that have enjoyed it this week.
