Well I had first light tonight thanks to Bill (finder), Rick (EPs), Gary (ES), Warren (secondary mirror) and Todd (collimator). Its a 10" portable truss dob using the primary from an Orion f/4.7. This is possibly the oddest first light I've had for a few reasons. First, since the scope is still minus a base, it was using the "ebony star-on-carpet" bearing. Secondly, I had only about 20 minutes to observe due to fast approaching clouds. Thirdly, due to the time constraints, I stuck to one object and didn't even bother to take the scope out onto the balcony; Jupiter was in the doorway, so I set up and observed right there. Now the tricky part; I was using a different set of EPs when I set up the trusses. Those EPs are now gone (due to a fire) and are now replaced with other ones, and I wasn't able to acheive focus at first. So with the clouds coming in, I whipped out my allen wrenches and twiddled with the built in truss adjust (ask me why I thought to put that in there), and threw everything back together for about 4 mins of good viewing of Jupiter (or as good as it can get from inside). After that, it worked wonderfully, and I actually saw a good deal of detail on the surface. I pushed it up to 120x still with the equitorial bands visible, and a darker band to the South (at the point, the image began to break down). I'm fairly impressed, and rather excited about how it will perform at ambient temp with dark skies (did I mention the security light right below me? :S ). I suppose since it was so warm today, my living room wasn't too far above outside ambient temperture at 10 pm, but I was still surprised with how much mag I was able to squeeze out of it and still acheive a decent view. I'll post again at some point once everything is completed. It's still only about 85% built, and a little photo-shy, so I'll put up pictures later as well. Thanks for reading!
Evan
Evan
