Telescope now on Order

I'm in Styrofoam heaven , the new scope arrived yesterday.
My first impressions
Scope: BIG
Mount:NOISY

Last night's goal was to assemble this behemoth and experiment with the handcontroller, no observing intended as nowhere nearby from where to observe.

Everything was packed very well in cardboard boxes, and lots of styrofoam. None of the equipment suffered in anyway during transport (thank you UPS).

The CG5-GT mount went together simply enough, and there are enough of these about not to warrant further comment

Assembly of everything was straightforward, the one thing I was concerned about in advance was balancing the telescope however this turned out be simplicity itself.

The scope itself seems very well made (but obviously the real test will be looking thru' it rather than at it). However the extras, 2 eyepieces, 1.25" star diagonal, finder scope, provided with it seem cheap and tacky and detract from the overall experience. The screws on the finder scope mounting rings are all metal (no nylon tips) and leave horrible scratches on the finder scope. The tube appears well baffled, and the objective lens are fully multicoated and reside inside a collimatable cell. The dew shield is 250mm long which I assume will be adequate. The 2" focuser is all metal, though the 2" to 1.25" reducer has plastic locking rings and appears filmsy.

Instructions: The scope came with a 1 page flysheet on how to assemble a generic telescope on a generic GEM not very good. The mount came with multiple Celestron hand books which cover the assembly and operation of the mount very well and has some general observing information. There was also a very comprehensive instruction booklet with the mount, going into every aspect of its operation including updating it and how to control the mount from a PC, unfortunately this was in German so not a lot of use to me (anyone out there good at German? )

Overall I'm very happy with my BIG scope and NOISY :twisted: mount. But the scope lets itself down with the cheap accessories and lack of literature.
I'll give an update when I have a few observation sessions with this set up.

BTW does any know any good (safe and somewhat darkish) observing locations in either north Dublin or Dundalk.
I would also love to have an experienced astronomer have a look at this set-up and give me some first hand observing advise.

Checked out Seeing prediction for Dublin and of course new scope = cloudy for next while.

Clear Dark Skies.

That's a very informative write-up Martin. Thanks for sharing it.

Cheap and tacky accessories are a real shame but I guess vendors see the value of creating a long list of 'stuff' to clinch a deal - albeit that the 'stuff' is possibly not far off worthless.

As long as your new scope and mount work, I wouldn't be overly worried about the attendant tat. As for the manual, that's a bit of a poor show. Still, there's plenty of advice and guidance on the web you can turn to.

The best of luck with the new toy, err scientific instrument. And enjoy the posh (expensive) dinner tomorrow night in deference to SWMBO...

Dave

p.s. thanks for the predicted two weeks of clouds...

Nice one Martin, best of Luck with it! Overall, it sounds good, please let us know how you get on, on your 1st clear night.

And yeah, That mount is noisy, but it'll scare the hell out of anything that comes near you !


Keith..

Thanks Keith,
I saw on a another thread that you were having trouble with aligning and tracking with the CG5, did you get these issues resolved?

A site I found - you probably have found it already, in which case my apologies :oops: - that may be of help if the issue is still present is

Nexstar Resource Site

One of the interesting things that I didn't realise is that the stars you select out of the auto align list have an effect on the accuracy of the mount, i.e. Auto align doesn't necessarily give you the best combination of stars for alignment purposes :!: .

Clear Dark Skies