LX90 See's first light - First Opinions

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
finderscope is bright and showed an open cluster clearly on one occasion (on
western horizon, never bothered to establish which of the nearby clusters
this could be owing to the quick test).

The tripod and mount appear very sturdy; vibration was unoticeable, any
knocks were settled in less than a second.

Early opine: I'm very happy with the scope and am looking forward to
frequent usage. Imaging with the LPI will be the next challenge. The LPI
documentation isn't as clear, and a couple of hours were needed to get the
scope, PC and Imager talking.

Regards


Chris