I took the scope out to a semi-dark spot (mag.5.7) about 50 miles from my house. I just wanted to tell you that the scope performed beautifully, and that I got stunning images after carefully collimating the mirrors.
M13 and M82 at 215x through my 7mm Nagler were unreal, and the Leo Trio showed significant dust lane detail in all three galaxies at 79x with my 19mm Axiom (They all fit in the eyepiece, barely). The balance with just the Telrad was perfect, although I'll be putting the counterweights on in order to use the 9x50 in hunting down fainter NGC's.
My friend had an 18" Obession out that night, and the Astro Sky looked just as good, moved more smoothly, and broke down in half the time. Actually,since he was using binoviewers on M13 at 280x, and I was using a single eyepiece at 215x, the vews were fairly similar, with the larger scope not having much of an advantage except image scale.
Thank you for such a wonderful scope!
Updated : May 16th.
Fan, 9 x50 finder and counterweights installed
I just picked up a Kendrick Laser Collimator ($130.00),
which you should try if you haven't already - I can set up the scope and have it collimated in about 90 seconds flat!
