Anyway, I finally got outside on friday night to give it a test run, and my test target was jupiter. with my 15mm eye piece, the moons and dust clouds looked beautiful.
It was the first time that I saw jupiter with such detail, and i hope to get outside again when/if the clouds go away for summer.
At the moment it's living inside. I built an observatory for it but its not quite finished yet . The intention is that it will live in the observatory during summer, and come inside for winter.
Its a tad bit heavy to be moving around in the wee small hours of the morning
Molly
I have the solid tube 12". Wonderful piece of kit for the $$$. I find the base is the clumsy thing to move about especially at 2am in a freezing winter night!
Jupiter is a great target, but where a scope like this really excells is on the DSOs.
Hope to hear plenty of reports on what you are seeing and how the Observatory is progressing!
What a great prezzie.
You thought Jupiter looks great, When Saturn in the morning at present catches your eye then you will have the biggest wow factor.
I was given an Meade 8" LX90 and saw Jupiter also for the first time in such detail. The moons were clearly visible and and I could clearly see the coloured banding.
I was astonished at how good the view actually was. Simply the best Christmas present ever.
my first taret for my 12" solid tube dob was jupiter, and it was a spectacular object indeed. the great red spot was visible as well as 3 cloud belts on this beautiful object. The real wow factor is saturn though. I got up at 3:30 a.m to see it, and it was worth all the effort used to get up and set up the scope.
. The intention is that it will live in the observatory during summer, and come inside for winter. 
