[W9TR]

Thanks Pete, Tony!

First Light

I woke up early this morning and the skies were clear!

The scope and tripod were easy to move and polar alignment took only a minute.

I live 25 miles SW of Minneapolis in an area with a lot of light pollution. The seeing was just OK last night. The first target was Jupiter. The first thing I noticed was the contrast was really high. The bands were crisply defined in the 16mm EP. The seeing wasn't good enough to use the barlow.

Mars was really small, not much to see there, just a red blob.

The terminator on Venus was clearly defined and easy to see,. A filter would have been a nice addition here.

M42 in Orion looked great in the 32mm EP. I could easily see the four brightest stars in the trampezium, but e and f were not visible.

The moon was a treat - very crisp views with great contrast.

I tried to find the Crab Nebula but struck out. It was pretty close to the moon and I just couldn't find it with the setting circles.

It looks like the RA drive is not working. I can hear a very faint hum when it is plugged in, but it is not tracking. I'll take it apart later today. I'm not surprised since it has never been used.

In summary, a good first outing. I found the controls easy to use and very smooth. I really liked the parfocal Brandon eyepieces and their integration with the finder. After polar alignment the tripod worked pretty well, it took less than 2 seconds for the vibrations to settle out.

Tom