[pmrid (Peter)]

Ten-Chainers will be familiar with the slow progress of this project. It's been fairly slow progress waiting for stuff from the States and for things that are backordered.
Anyway, the official outcome is that 21Kgs have been shed from the OTA leving it at a nice 20Kgs. It's now been re-assembled and optical exes brought into alignment. All that remains is a reasonable night to collimate and we'll be able to see if it's all been worth the effort.
Here's some pics of the end result. The main changes have been a new primary and secondary assembly including spider, a new focuser and some vaery drastic cuts with an angle grinder to the sonotube itself.
Fingers crossed. If it collimates well enough it'll be an f/20 12 1/2 inch scope with a FL of 6300 (or so) capable of up to x1200 on a good night. There's enough of Jupiter still in the sky to make the mouth drool just a little.

Peter.