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Not quite first light but managed to shoot it out the garage door between showers and line up on the houses etc about 4 km away. Couldn't get focus because as usual I am always a bit generous in my calculations and the focal point was about halfway down inside the focusser. Out with the hacksaw and chopped off 50 mm from each of the bottom truss tubes. Let me tidy up some not so pretty work anyway and now got focus about 20 mm of travel above the the bottom stop. Centred the spider, did a visual down the OTA to the mirror and aligned that and bingo, I could count the stars on a flag across the valley.
Chopping a couple of inches off the bottom has improved the balance point nicely but now I need another Counter balance weight for sure. Did a test rotation on the UTA assembly to see how alignment held and not bad at first glance but more testing to be done there.
Wiring fan, secondary heater and building the power control system is next while the clouds hang around.
I'll do a first light in the DOB base as soon as they give me a break.
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