It's here!  It's here!!  It's here!!!

Well, it's been a LONG time coming, but my XT10 Intelliscope (10" dob with computerized hand controller), the maker of which shall remain nameless here for fear of offending someone, has finally arrived!  I ordered this back at the end of January 2009 to replace my PowerSeeker 127EQ after I attended my first ever star party and seeing what a huge difference aperture can make.  Unfortunately I had to wait for the local dealer to amass a number of other orders so that they could ship them all at once, so the order wasn't actually placed to the US until March.  Then, of course, they shipped them all by sea to save on shipping costs!  I think I have driven my wife and kids loony while I've been waiting for it.

I've had to keep myself busy while I've been waiting, so I've made a Hartmann mask for it out of thin ply and a Denver Observers Chair as well, both from some DIY instructions I found on the 'net at http://www.iceinspace.com.au/projects.html.  Here's a photo of the finished chair...

 Folds up into a nice flat package for transporting too!

Anyways, back to the scope!  It got its first light on Friday night after the kids helped me assemble the dob base (there was NO WAY I was letting them even touch the alt/az encoders though!).  Unfortunately it was dark when we finished assembling and I had no idea how to align the finderscope with the telescope in the dark so decided to leave it until the next day to do that (I must be a bit of a sado-masochist to make myself wait another day with it all assembled and sitting in my lounge!).  However, watching the weather report on TV at 10:30pm that night and seeing heavy rain warnings for about the next week soon changed my perspective and I dragged it outside to attempt the finderscope alignment in the dark!  It took me about an hour and a half, but I finally got it aligned, only to find that the collimation was quite off as I couldn't achieve pinpoint focus on anything!

Grabbed the laser collimator (another new toy, which arrived with the scope) and the scope manual and set about doing the collimation...now let's see, the secondary mirror is not aligned properly and the manual says "Using a 2mm hex key", not "Using the supplied 2mm hex key"...aaarrrggghhh!  A quick search of the supplied accessories reveals that the wording of the manual is correct - no hex key supplied!  At this point I decide that Murphy's Law has been applied and grab a quick but slightly blurry view of Saturn and then the Tarantula Nebula before packing it up again and heading off to bed in disgust.

A clear head the next morning allows me to recall the el-cheapo toolkit locked up in the back shed that I bought about 20 years ago.  A bit of searching resulted in me emerging from the depths of the shed with a whole bunch of different sized hex keys - one of which was a 2mm as required!  Laser collimation was duly completed and now I just have to wait for the damn rain and thick cloud cover to GO AWAY!!!

But wait, there's more...

I recently ordered and received a Philips SPC900NC (ToUcam III) webcam, as I'd really like to try my hand at some astrophotography  Obviously, with a non-motorized dob I never going to get images like John Buonomo, but at least I'll be able to hopefully take some halfway decent lunar and planetary images.  Now I'm just waiting on the T-Mount and 2" adapter to connect the webcam to the telescope and I should be away laughing.  Have also ordered the Celestron 2" eyepiece and filter kit too (not related to the desire to do astrophotography - they were just really nice eyepieces!).  Most of these "extras" have been purchased under the radar...so don't tell my wife...please!!!

Until next time - Clear Skies to all!

Regards, Mike