My New Babies... C9.25 and LXD75!

[Robert_T]

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

[Hitchhiker]

That's a lot of firepower you've got there!

We'll be expecting a lot of images!

Adam.

[Striker (Tony)]

congrats on the new set up Robert.

And say hello to the babies for me.

Thank god you can take the wrap for the weather now.....my stint is officialy over....wahoo

[asimov (John)]

Traitor! Do I have to carry on the age old tradition of astro-pic taking with a 6" achro refractor all by myself now?? ................

Lovely scopes there mate! May you have never ending pleasant views & photo's with them!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Not another new setup. Man its not going to stop raining here til next July Me Tony and now you Robert. C'mon ally you SE-Qlders. Get out there now and buy everything you need. Lets get this weather over and done with.

Nice setup Robert. How about bringing it up to Astroron's place next weekend if its fine.

[Striker (Tony)]

I think the problem is that we can't do any observing or imaging due to weather....so we need to soften the pain some how so buying more equipment sounds like the next best thing.

[Robert_T]

Thanks guys, looks like all I'll be doing with 'em for a while given this weather is admiring their pristine sheen... ran a GoTo session "Best of" tour under the house - that slewing stuff is reall Cool, even got my kids momentarily interested Sad eh!

Happy to take the rap for the weather for the next week or so. Not sure I've gotten this latest spending frenzy out of my system yet though - there's motor focussers, dew heaters/shields and powermates and monochrome firewire cameras and ....and the Visa card hasn't entirely melted yet (warped and split a bit maybe).

I'll be glad to get the new gear up to Astroron's but given the weather and my other current affliction (renovating a Queenslander) I doubt I'll be going anywhere much until the New Year.
cheers,

[beren]

nice blend of gear there Robert ....ill be keen to hear how the mount goes

[Stu]

I had a feeling that you would get the entire setup delivered quicker than I could get the Autostar controller. Serves me right for being impatient. Remember that you can train the drives during the day so you still have some button pressing to do while waiting for the sky to clear up!

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by asimov

Traitor! Do I have to carry on the age old tradition of astro-pic taking with a 6" achro refractor all by myself now?? ................

Aah Asi come to the reflected light... it's not too late to turn

Don't worry I'm still hanging the ol' 6 in refractor - it might get lonely for a while, but when I want some obstruction free views it'll be whipped back out (still got some of my best Jupiter pics from that one too).

cheers,

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Stu

I had a feeling that you would get the entire setup delivered quicker than I could get the Autostar controller. Serves me right for being impatient. Remember that you can train the drives during the day so you still have some button pressing to do while waiting for the sky to clear up!

Oh, and Stu you gotta get your Autostar controller thingy soon - this thing is soo coool even if I can only look at spider webs in the rafters. Can't even train the drives until it stops raining!

cheers,

[ving (David)]

well you sound as happy as a pig in mud
congrats!