"""Waiting for my LX90 to arrive ... """

I'd be glad to hear your views also; once the clouds have settled after
delivery...

Regards

Chris

"Andrew Cockburn" wrote in message
...
Congrats !

Waiting for my LX90 to arrive ... its even harder now I just read your
post :-)

Andrew Cockburn

In article ,
says...
I've never been much good at star-hopping, hence the desirability of
GOTO.

We recently left a small GOTO in South Africa for future visits
(aaaahhh,
southern skies...) and after a disappointing brush with an Ebay
'special'
decided to take the plunge on an LX90.

The manual seems pretty comprehensive and is easily read. The scope
needs
minimal assembly.

With tonight's clear skies, the scope saw it's first light. Jupiter and
Saturn, although impressive by the smaller reflector standards, were
less
impressive than I had expected. A star test quickly showed that the
scope
needed collimating, a task I've not enjoyed on newtonian scopes. The
LX90
proved to be a piece of cake to sort and took less than 5 minutes on my
first attempt with this type of scope. The trick seemed to be in making
very
small adjustments and the three (secondary) screws needed about 1/8th of
a
turn each. Less than 5 minutes work saw the 'airy disk' with well formed
concentric rings.

A quick turn to Jupiter now saw the red (pale) spot, and clear
definition in
the cloud bands. Saturn was awesome at 150x magnification. The Cassini
division and ring-shadow on the planet now easily visible.

Although in a light polluted area (Farnham, Surrey), we're pretty lucky
with
a very private garden and no street interfering lamps. Everything has a
price; and the privacy afforded by the trees cut-out anything within 15
to
20 deg of the East-West horizon, and 20 to 30 deg of the North-South
Horizon. A quick tour without much time taken to study detail allowed a
rapid test-tour of objects preselected before sunset:

Saturn-Jupiter-Venus-Mars
M81-M82-M51-M34-M63-M94-M106-M37-M44-M35-NGC3377-M13-M92-M64
Moon
1-Ceres (sketch of region confirmed on star chart later)

Without specifically hunting, the faintest star noticed came in at 10.4
(near Ceres) with a bright moon and light pollution. I'll see how low
this
figure can go in a darker circumstance (13?).

The scope brought most objects within the field of view of a wider angle
40mm (F=2000mm hence 50x) eyepiece. With 'precision' mode set, the
autostar
brought everything into the centre of the eyepiece everytime. Precision
mode
hunts for a star to calibrate against prior to each new object. The
images
stayed in the centre of the eyepiece for the odd ocassion that the scope
was
left unattended (for up to about 10 minutes). I'll perform a longer test
at
a future date.

It's much noisier than my celestron GOTO while searching, but remakably
quiet (in comparison) while tracking. The telescope and its controls
feel
solid and the overall impression is one of a quality product. The