Hey Dallas, something else for ya to do when you finally leave those mountains one day and head south...here's a couple of heavy hitter scopes. I like to look up in the nighttime...I like to get up close to the craters on the moon, like zooming in on Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, nebulas, star clusters, etc.
Man been looking up towards the heavens from day one...I like to get my feel of it and checking out chit that's millions of miles away from us grounded boys. You'd be amazed the folks I've had here at my house with these scopes checking out what's up there. My 10" Dobsonian is point and shoot, the 8" Orion Equatorial, Go-To Computer driven scope takes a little bit to set up, he's got to his reference point shooting at the North star, another object in the sky, etc. just downloaded the latest drivers and software for his ass...he'll track and follow by himself, over 40,000 objects in space now. You just tell his ass what ya wanna follow, it does the tracking for ya. It's a pain in the ass to get the declination right at times, but when you get it dialed in with the computer that drives it, it's a sweet reflector scope. Crazy what the eyeball seestheough these things. Both of them are damn good scopes with the right eyepieces and Barlows. You'd be amazed how close you get to that chit that's millions a miles away.
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The 8" Equatorial mount scope in the second pic has 24lbs of round counterweight plates to make it track with the computer. That whole setup weighs over a 100lbs. It's a MF'r trying to take the scope off it by yourself, then moving the tripod legs outside, then get the scope back on by yourself. Then ya gotta dial his ass in, so he can track right, ascension/declination-wise. I.e....orbit path, everything up top is not flat, its orbital, elliptical path. Pain in the ass again, to get it figured out, but I got his ass tracking to where whatever you're looking at stays dead nuts centered in the eyepieces as we rotate on this rock. It was complicated to begin with no doubt...he tracks like a cats's ass. It's some complicated chit when you trying to get the computer, axis-wise, declination, do what you want. When you get it dialed in...it's dead nuts! And it's a helluva view fellas!