Behold the unholy wedlock twixt Celestron and Meade!
Took delivery today of a new Celestron 9.25 OTA and a meade autostar LXD75. They're very shiny and have made me very happy despite the heavy blanket of rain cloud they brought with them.
The pic below is just a taster. I'll write up and post a first impressions of each after I've had a chance to get to know them better. The LXD75 has got the very stable 2inch tripod legs - I also got Star Optics to run the fix kit through (regrease etc) and it is OH so smoooth.
I've decided to trade in my Mewon 210 for the Mewlon 180 with some credit (put toward the C9.25) so I'll now have two complementary OTA's for planetary observing - one open tubed 7inch that will cool quickly and should be less susceptible to seeing and which I can use while the 9.25 is stabilising in temp...
cheers