[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

The lady that delivered it in two boxes was quite strong!

I haven't bought a mount since 1987 and this is my first goto mount. Eagerly waited for nightfall and remarkably it was relatively cloud free. Did a quick polar alignment and accidentally nailed it first go. Took the SW120 off that's in the photo and put on the ED80. Had a bit of a play with 1 star alignment.

Then out of curiosity I put in a reticle eyepiece to see how good the drive motors were at tracking. OMG the drive motors on this thing are accurate! I centered a star and the R.A. motor tracked a perfect bulls eye for 32 minutes! That's without PEC training! Is that normal for a HEQ5? At this rate I'm not going to need to use a guidescope, at least not for the ED80. Actually I still will since I'm sure my next PA will be terrible. I'm still dumbfounded by the accuracy of the R.A. drive though. My last mount would be lucky to track for 30 seconds without correction.

So very happy with this mount and will be learning the features for a bit yet.