[telecasterguru (Frank)]

Well the couds cleared for a couple of hours tonight and at last I was able to put the G11 together and plonk the GSO 10" RC onto it. This is the first time I had used either the mount or the scope. Previously I used an EQ6.

I did not image tonight. That would have been too much what with trying to learn the mount and the scope.

Firstly, the G11 had no problem with the 10" and the ED80 and threw them around with what appeared to me to be ease. I weighed the 10" on the bathroom scales and it came in around 16 kilos. I was a little surprised as it didn't seem that heavy to pick up.

I was worried that balancing the scopes would be a problem, but is was not, although 2 x 21lb weights were needed. That's around 20 kilos!!

Using the hand controller on the G11 was a real learning curve. It is absolutely nothing like the EQ6. I am not sure whether it was better or worse, just different. It did take a while to work out how to find the different menus but after I had sorted that it wasn't too bad.

I connected a Garvin GPS unit and the mount downloaded all the information required and away I went.

Three star alignment was not too bad from a standing start. Sirius, Canopus and Rigel.

The manual says that you have to use three stars all on the one side of the meridian. This was OK as these bright stars are all easy early in the evening.

I have to say here that the manual is very good although a little bit too much information at times if that is possible.

Problem came later in the night as they moved past the meridian and I wanted to realign. Sorry, that star is not availalbe.

The real problem that I had is that I you have to do a polar alignment before you do the star alignment. I did not do this and was therefore having star alignment problems. The clouds were rolling in and I was getting impatient. Need to remember to do the polar alignment next time.

This of course meant I was not finding targets as easily as I would have liked. Not far off but a little.

All in all the G11 looks to be the goods. Still a long way to go to learn all of the little idiosyncrocies of the mount but pleased with the first go.

Now the GSO 10" RC.

This scope looks great. It has no manual supplied. I did not find this a problem.

It comes with 2 extension tubes for the focuser and you definitely need the longer one to find focus. I could not find focus at all with out it. I thought that this was very odd to produce a scope that the focuser could not be used at all without an extension. Having said that the extension was very solid.

I could not find focus at all with a diagonal. Not with any of the extensions or without.

My first view of Sirius nearly blew my socks off. I thought I may have to collimate the secondary mirror but defocusing did not appear to show any displacement in the mirror. I was more than suprised and also very happy after all the talk about collimation that I had read.

Next a quick look at M42 as you would expect. There was an enormous amount of detail in the nebula and I know this is not supposed to be a visual scope but I was more than happy with what was in the eye piece.

I would say that it appeared to me to be sharper than my 10" dob. I suppose, I really expected it to be. The dob's mirror is fairly dusty but that is another story.

The full moon is on its way and the clouds roll in and the show is over. Would have liked to get to other objects but am very glad that after 2 weeks I could actually put it all together and start my steep learning curve.

I am very happy and next comes the imaging. Hopefully next weekend.

Frank