Finally. Bintel 10" dob with a Skywatcher EQ6 mount to sit it on. I gotta tell ya, I almost, Almost bit off more than I can chew with this EQ6 mount, what a behemoth.
Took maybe 2 hours to whack it together allowing for phone calls, visitors, cats and no instruction book for the mount.
The two 5.4Kg weights aren't enough to balance the OTA so it was a quick trip to BigW and bought a 5Kg dumbell weight for $14
which locks down ok between the other two and gives good balance. There's a bit of slop in the hole but I think I can sleeve it with something eventually.
Snuck, lugged, dragged, stumbled outside with it last night in 3 loads for a quick look about before the clouds started coming in and the wind picked up. The Moon seemed nice and crisp in the 32mm, the Orion Nebula look sweet, if a bit washed out by the Moon.
But wait, oh, stars aren't focusing to well. Swing around to Saturn. Ohh somethings wrong here. Collimation must be off, which is understandable I guess after travelling 1600Km from Sydney to Rockhampton by road freight. Put the laser collimator in and sure enough, the secondary is off center by at good inch. I'll fix that today
.
All in all I'm very happy with the rig. Cheers to the boys(& girls?) at Bintel. Do any of them read this forum?
Now if only the Moon will go away again
cheers...
