USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 11 August 2003

Subject:	New ETX-125  First Light
Sent:	Sunday, August 10, 2003 18:09:55
From:	Mikel180@comcast.net (Mikel Stoer)
Last night as the evening wound down in north Texas I took out my new
ETX-125 for first light.  After re-setting and re-training my Autostar
(that I have been using with my ETX-90) I was some what concerned
because the motors didn't sound right.  Well I went ahead and started
up. entered time and date ... the standard routine.

A two star easy align in alt az followed with the standard adjusting to
the star locations.  Then I did a goto on Mars. It was a little after
midnight at this time and mars was well up and near centered but I found
that once the initial slew to was done and it started fine slewing all
motor noise was gone.  Nothing at all unlike my ETX-60 or 90.  It is
virtually silent.

I switched eyepieces and with a 9mm (Celestron Plossel) I could easily
make out the southern pole and some shading in different areas on the
planetary surface. Awesome.

Then I got worried. Every time I did a goto the object was almost out of
the field of view. On a couple of occasions it actually was out side the
FOV and I had to use the Autostar to slew in on the object. This is not
what I've become use to once I learned to level and align the scope
(back when my only one was the ETX-60at) properly.

Well I tried to re-align the scope with virtually the same results.
Goto's were ok at best but not good. I finally decided to call it a
night and while breaking down my scope for the evening I took out the
eyepiece to realize that I had been running with the 9mm in since the
first look at Mars... That put a whole new meaning to what I had been
doing all night.

Instead of my goto's being borderline at 73x all night they were in or
at the edge of the FOV at 211x. Quit a bid of difference. I am
impressed.

Great sight and thank you for all your help.

Mike

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