The extras arrived Monday morning around 9am and the scope arrived about 11:30am...so I took an "extended lunch" to put it together. At first the guys here were only mildly interested, until I got the tripod out and attached the EQ assembly. By then you could see it over the partitions in the room, so anyone walking past would see it. By the time I put the C11 on top, you couldn't miss it, then the dew shield....it nearly reached the ceiling.
I had a bit of a play last night to check out where all the knobs are, set latitude, balance etc. My first impressions of the CGE are it is a masterpiece of engineering. No spindly little bits, big chunky levers, dovetail is pretty beefy, tripod is well constructed but surprisingly light enough to lift with one hand, provided you haven't put the EQ head or counter weight on! Here is a quick photo I took last night to compare the C8N-GT to the C11-CGE....drool guys! Drool...
