New scope on its way…

Greetings:

Last week I ordered a CPC800 from ATWB. UPS says it will arrive tomorrow. I can hardly wait. This is an upgrade to my seven-year-old C5+, which I plan to keep as a quick-look scope and telephoto lens. A manual mount with only a RA drive was a great way to learn the sky, now I look forward to GOTO and the need to buy more accessories.

Fred

Murphy's Law of New Toys strikes again: new scope = clouds. It was mostly clear today. It was mostly clear when I got home and had dinner. It was mostly cloudy when I set up the scope outside.

It was so cloudy that I couldn't find three stars to do a SkyAlign. Howeer, I was able to do an Auto 2-Star alignment. Sirius was visible through the clouds and the CPC800 was able to find Rigel by itself (I couldn't see it except through the finder and eyepiece). I centered Rigel and got a perfect alignment. The CPC found Saturn for me and put it almost smack dab in the center of the supplied 40 mm eyepice. The murk made Saturn a bit fuzzy, but Titan was also visible. A thinning of the clouds allowed me to find M42, barely and briefly. The Trapezium was visible and just a bit of the nebula.

The verdict: this promises to be an awesome scope. The tripod is first rate and I like the little touches, like the strap to secure the legs, the captive mounting bolts, etc. The spreader could have a little more storage, but it's OK for my needs. The scope acquired the GPS satellites very quickly and in my short test proved to be very accurate finding things. I can't wait for a usable sky. The optics appear to be excellent, though colimation is off just a tad. Also, the scope is a work of art.

This is going to be fun.

Fred

P.S. One more thing: zero image shift, just like my C5+.

Tonight it finally cleared up. I spent about 15 minutes getting the colimation squared away and it made a noticable improvement. The alignment was off a little more than I had noticed during my short run last Monday.

What a sweat view of Saturn + Titan + Rhea + Dione + Tethys at 200x under light polluted skies. Saw the E star of the Trapezium. Nice view of the Orion Nebula, too. But, I had left the OIII inside and was having too much fun to go get it. Maybe next time. Jumped around to a bunch of open clusters. Couldn't see a galaxy to save my life. Fortunately, we're having a star party/Messier Marathon on Saturday.

One other thing, the focus mechanism is the smoothest I have ever used. I thought my C5 was smooth, this is like butter only not as messy.

Clear skies,
Fred