Flippin' huge! Heavy, too, but not unmanageable even for a weedy nerd like me. Makes the Celestron 8SE mount look weedy for sure.

First attempt at using it was a bit of a failure as I hadn't appreciated just how much initial (one-time only) set up was required, I ended up fumbling with it for about an hour in the dark with weight and OTA attached before giving up and just manually pointing it to various random stars. Pretty!

This was also the first time I used the Baader SteelTrack crayford focuser, veerrry nice indeed, as well as the 50mm finder scope, also extremely nice and a hundred times better than the red dot finder.

Today I took the mount out in daylight and have hopefully successfully completed the initial polar alignment and set up, the polar scope was already aligned so that when I rotated the RA the object under the polar scope cross hairs didn't move, which is good. All that should be left is the polar alignment when I actually go and do some observing, should take no more than ten minutes.

I'm wondering if it's worth leaving the mount outside during the new moon phase, it would save a lot of set up, strip down, and alignment for a few days each month. I could sling an old waterproof coat over it to keep any rain off. My only concern would be if someone did manage to steal it (very slowly...) Naturally I would not leave the OTA attached.

Anyway, can't wait to do that final polar alignment and see the thing tracking stars! Next task will be to work out how to use the SynTrek hand controller.