...is awesome! I had it out on my driveway last night. Despite poor
transparency and lots of bright lights in my eyes, I was able to get pretty
good views of M13, M57, Albireo and even Saturn between the trees. Much
easier once I figured out how to align the Telrad...
Setup is straightforward but I think we'll want some kind of quick-start
guide for it. There are a few steps that are easy to get wrong.
I used my 20mm and 9mm Expanse eyepieces and both worked just fine and
should be suitable for outreach etc if / when we buy a new set for Elsom.
I found myself using the 20mm the most.
Azimuth motion was very smooth. Altitude was a bit sticky but I think once
I get more practice it won't be an issue.
Precise collimation was a bit of a chore for me...I'm used to to having a
donut hole for a center-dot on the primary mirror. I wonder if we might
consider adding such a thing? Collimating the secondary w/ a laser becomes
almost trivial and it makes a Barlow'd laser collimation for the primary
much easier.
It looks like there used to be a donut-hole center-dot on the primary and
that it either fell off or was removed. I'm pretty sure we can just use one
those paper hole reinforcement rings.
Of course this may also be my lack of experience collimating bigger
scopes...
In any case...the club is very fortunate to have this instrument (and
members capable of building it!). I have a personal connection to it as
well...Larry Elsom was my high-school physics teacher. His enthusiasm for
astronomy had a great deal of influence on me.
If the weather holds I may pack Blue Elsom out to Fishtrap on Friday (I'll
be out of town over the weekend).
Nick