Ordered it thursday last week, paid for it the next day & it got here lunch time today. Andrews communications. Thanks for the great service Lee.
Yes *sigh* the clouds, rain, gale force winds are here too. Thats ok, no hurry (yeah right! ) Everything looks in tip-top condition, & it rides the EQ5 no sweat....A bit lighter than the refractor & less lever arm action should make it nice to 'drive'..
Hey! would you believe this!?....Just stuck my head out the back door & the clouds are GONE!!!! The wind is dropping quickly too! Ok! what to do...Don't panic....AAAAAHH!.....Take said telescope out first/line up finder scope.....
Well its out there cooling down, & not a breathe of wind. Seeing looks about 6-7/10. Lined up the finder on Saturn at 313X And first ligh impressions are: Collimation is ok, but some tweaking will be needed. A definite cool down period will be needed....saturn is shimmering in the EP nicely.
It rides the EQ 5 like it was made for it Geoff! Dampening time 3-4 seconds @ 313X, but its to do with the flex in the dovetail bar rather than the mount. It's a ***** to balance the scope out on the DEC axis, is my only complaint (so far). Hard to get to the dovetail locking screws, hold the OTA steady & move the OTA up or down depending on which way it's out. I'll get the hang of it I guess.
nice one Asi, now for those who can put two and two together, Dave you can get the computerised mount from andrews for 1299, look in his used and surplus stock area!
Carbon Fibre has a much, much, much lower thermal expansion value - its like 0.2 vs 10.0 for aluminium or steel. So if you are long exposure imaging expect to get temperature variances which will mostly like shrink your telescope tube enough to impact your focusing (unless you're using a robofocuser or something). Otherwise every so often 20 - 30 minutes you might have to re-adjust focus.
Carbon Fibre is far less likely to be affected by a significant tempeature change from start of night to end of night, so your image should stay much sharper with fewer adjustments over the course of your imaging.
So for shorter imaging < 20 minutes, fewer worries, for longer imaging, more focal adjustments required or an auto-focusered needed more to adjust to tube length changes.
PS
Lee just dropped his surplus CG5 to about $1,100 ... tempting! <TABLE class=content cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=1><TBODY><TR class=tbl_text><TD class=desc>Celestron CG5 Go-To computerised mount with s/s tripod, new</TD><TD class=price>$1099.00</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The CF OTA is also a few kg's lighter, so there's less stress on the mount. I was going to buy the CF version of my C11 but the price difference was huge at the time.
Andrews communications. Thanks for the great service Lee. 
) Everything looks in tip-top condition, & it rides the EQ5 no sweat....A bit lighter than the refractor & less lever arm action should make it nice to 'drive'..
Hope you have more opportunities to use yours than I've had.
