Ok i had a chance to test it out last night. The weather was terrible again last night, not a cloud in the sky but lots of dewy foggy haze. I could only make out bright stars, I couldn't even see orion's belt with naked eyes or barely with binoculars for most of the night but there was the occasional clearer patch. I still managed to see a lunar eclipse on Jupitor
I had already fitted it to the scope's dovetail on friday. I took the scope outside and started to 'line up' the red dot finder. This is the $59 red dot finder with 4 selectable laser patterns from Andrews. The service from them as usual is excellent and the build quality of this unit looks very good with an all metal body. I started to line up the horizontal alignment with the supplied allen key and this worked fine. I then stated on the vertical alignment and this didn't work at all. No matter how many times i turned the allen key left or right it did nothing. A few more turns and "POP" out came a retaining piece from the finder. It hit the strut on the scope and bounced back onto the ground where i found it. I'm glad it didn't pop into the scope and land on the primary!
Off to the shed i went to use a clamp to hold it steady while i re-fitted the retainer. Still, no vertical adjustment. At this time i remembered that there was a smaller allen key supplied but not mentioned in the manual. I looked closely and found a small hole directly behind the horizontal adjustment screw. I stuck the small allen key in there and loosened the bolt and the rear of the finder sprung up. It appears that this it a 'major' vertical adjustment - just not mentioned in the manual. Within a few minutes i had the red dot finder back on the scope and using my thumb and finger i squeezed the rear of the red dot finder until it was lined up and then tightened the small allen key. Still not ideal as there was no 'fine adjustment' but at least i could get the dot into the 'vicinity'.
It was very easy to line up jupitor and any other star which i could make out in the poor conditions. It was easier than using the viewfinder. The glass viewer stops the laser from penetrating but it's also easy and clear to see through and the laser is very visible on the glass. It has 4 selectable patterns but i found the easiest was the smallest dot. It also comes with a cleaning cloth and a rubber dust cover for the glass. Here is a picture. Notice the vertical allen key adjustment on top of the finder which was ineffective:
http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/p...otfinder01.jpg
I have called andrews and asked them if this is a known problem and/or if they have any solutions to the vertical adjustment issue. I spoke with Luke who said that they've sold hundreds without any issue and none coming back and he wanted me to send it to him straight away (i'm in QLD) and he'll express post another out immediately.
cheers