Following an inheritance, I've taken the decision to carry out a major upgrade of the set up in my observatory.

Gone is my venerable Meade 8" LX200 and in has come a Skywatcher EQ8 mount carrying a 2nd hand C9.25 and my 80ED and my 66mm ED simultaneously.  This is all held together using around 40,000 tonnes of ADM Losmandy dovetails and clamps.   Added to this is an Atik 460EX Mono CCD camera + a ZWO 8 position filter wheel with a full set of Baader RGB and narrowband filters and I am one very happy bunny. 

Now comes the hard work.  It's going take a LONG time and a lot of work to set this all up properly and to learn how to use it all.  I've decided that I'm going to try really hard to spend at least 90% of observing/imaging time in 2017 just setting it up and getting to know how to use all this new stuff.  I already seem to have spent an equivalent to the combined national debts of Greece and Spain on adaptors, rotating adaptors and spacers.

Because I really haven't got enough to do already, I'm also taking the opportunity to switch over from PHD to PHD2, to build an Arduino-based focus controller, to learn how to use Sequence Generator Pro and to install a new 12v power supply in the observatory.

Happy Days