Looks great. I would gIve it a try in the daylight, get the finder aligned ahead of Monday night!

have you got a view out to a distant object (hill, tree, telegraph pole?)

Alan

I've roughly aligned it with a tree about 60m away, thats the furthest i can do at the moment, but i live at the top of a hill so later i will try aligning it with a skyscraper in london; but i think i'm going to order a cross hair eye piece to do it properly ...assuming the cross hair on the finder is accurate enough to be worth it? Not sure, seen lots of people saying its not great?

Couldnt get a pin sharp image of the tree, it was pretty sharp, but with (chromatic aberration? Is that the right term.. colorful distortion around the edges), is that just down to the distance i was trying to focus on? Using the 25mm

Don't rush into the crosshair eyepiece, you may not need it.

you may swap to telrad or red dot finder in the future.

as the finder is only x8 magnification and has a wide wide view you will be fine.

use the 25mm to get the scope pointed at something, then adjust the finder to the same place.

for higher accuracy, put the 10mm in and repeat.

job done.

Will give that a go thanks!

I'm waiting for a colliminator aswell, no idea when that will arrive, could lack of collimation be the cause of the color shift i'm seeing on the edges of the tree branches? Or something else?

probably the eyepiece. they are optimised for night time use. The bright moon can also show up these issues with eyepieces.

don't worry about colliimation too much in the first week. Just focus on getting to see something.

you can of course do a quick collimation check by looking down the focuser (with eyepiece removed) to see if you can see reflections of reflections and if the centre mark of the mirror is centered.

Of course it is hard to hold your eye dead centre so don't expect 100% accurate result.

Great info thanks!