A thin cloud cover has moved in, but I got a good look at Jupiter before that. (The heavens are telling me to go to bed, but I'm too excited!)
There is a lot of things I like about the scope and a few I don't.
I'm impressed with the everything on the OTA. All looks well made. And that finder is a beaut. (Dewed up in 5 minutes though and stayed that way for the rest of the night!
) The spring loaded finder mount is awesome too!
Collimation was a long way off, which was quite obvious when looking at Saturn. Still looked great to me though. At transit, I was astonished with the amount of detail I could see.
With Jupiter I could no longer tolerate the blurry edges, so I got out the laser collimator I ordered with the scope and got to work. It was pretty easy. (I practiced on my cheap 4.5" first) Wow! What a difference! The detail and crisp edges on that huge planet! And how clear are those four little moons! Thoroughly impressed! Now, I can't wait to see Saturn with the collimated optics!
The laser collimator is great; it's a "return beam" type so there is a window where you can see the reflected beam hitting a target the centre of which is the laser source. Makes adjusting the primary is a piece of cake. $79 well spent! Must say that without the collimator I would be somewhat disappointed with the scope.
Dew was a big problem. But I expected it to be, so I left half my EP collection inside. (I've got 7 ploessls. The three that came with the cheap Dick Smith scope are as good as the GS ones!) I swapped the two sets 4 or 5 times. That's OK at home, but I don't know what I'm gonna do when I travel to darker skies out of Melbourne.
The alt-az motion needs some work. The altitude axis is a little stiff (too much tension in the springs I think) and the azimuth is more than a little stiff for tracking the sky. I'll read up on the mods for the mount.
The free 10x32 binos are surprisingly good too (but mag of 10x is a bit too high).
Really gotta go to bed now!
Good night!
PS:
Quote:
Originally posted by iceman
notch up another happy 8" dob owner, courtesy of these forums 
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Sorry, but you can't take credit for this one!
I ordered the scope before finding these forums.
