I received my new telescope this past Monday from Meade Telescopes. This is a big guy! I can barely move around. The scope was double boxed, and well protected. I built it up in approximately 25 minutes. It came with the Tripod, 26mm Series 4000 Plossl eye-piece, and diagonal prism.
A few minutes before sunset, I hauled the scope outside and began getting acquainted with my new masterpiece. I positioned it next to my 8-inch Meade SCT, and it towers over the older model. I was getting pretty excited at this point. Luckily, the Moon is just 1.7 days from a New Moon and easily to spot in the west. So I focused my finder on the crescent Moon and transitioned over to the main optics. Having not done this in awhile I struggled for 20 minutes trying to focus in to the Moon. Soon the lunar landscape became visible, and I was astonished. Of course I called my wife to see this lunar landscape with all the shadowy craters littering the surface of the Moon. I then waited until the skies fell dark.
At approximately 9 PM, I began touring the skies. I started out with the most obvious Vega and Arcturus for positioning. This LX-90 is equipped with a GPS for accurate positioning, but I chose to first perform a manual positioning, and then I tried the GPS. Using the GPS is very convenient and I will be my Go-To for most nights. The motion of the motors are very quiet and steps are smooth. All of Meades telescopes come with an upgraded AutoStar with many new features. The first feature that stood out is the audio feature. The AutoStar will speak information of objects to give the history and facts about the objects that you are looking at. This is a feature that I have not experience with my older AutoStar. Really Cool!
I then moved on to observing deep sky objects such as M44 the Beehive Cluster, M6 the Butterfly Cluster, M16 the Eagle Nebula, and Mel 111 Open Star Cluster.
It took me a few minutes to get aquatinted with my new telescope, but it was very exciting to be able to get back into my hobby. I can't wait for the first star party at the GMARS Goat Mountain Astronomical Research Station when the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Till then, Keep your head up!
