Yup, mine arrived Tuesday, was assembled that night and in a reasonable short time I had my room filled with something resembling one huge mortar tube. Wednesday, slight delay but then got into the collimation, starting at the secondary. Somewhere between secondary and primary I thought I'm never going to get this right, but eventually there appeared to be some sought of alignment. Thursday, again the scope had to take a number while I cleared some higher priority activities, however it did see light later on, albeit limited. Friday, off to the dark site, go through all the finderscope alignments and eventually get three viewers all pointing at the same thing (Yup, fitted a Telrad too). Then settled into a quiet night, exploring here and there, trying out the different lenses
. Of things that need to be corrected, my main concern was the balance issue, at both low and high elevations. In between it seemed OK, but only after cable-tying the battery pack to the lower end of the OTA. The addition of a maglite (red lense) and leatherman, under the cable tie also helped. Still it doesn't solve the problem, particularly with a 2" lense fitted. Definitely more friction required. Everything moved OK, but I do agree, something needs to be done to improve the base mechanism beyond the three supplied teflon pads. The suggestions to be found on this site will be closely looked at! My only other problem for the night, apart from clouds and smoke, was the surprising amount of dust and crud the primary managed to attract in such a short time. I was hoping there would be more enjoyment time before I had to tackle mirror cleaning, so soon after learning collimation
. Anyway, I'll be back there tonight, making the most of the opportunity and whatever the skies can offer!!
