A semi-successful first outing with the telescope. We only had about 15 minutes of clear sky, and any view of the stars was occluded by the light from the full moon. So we didn't even bother with the stars, I just focused in on the moon and gave Catherine, Amanda, Garry and Amanda's sister the best view of the moon they've probably ever had. There are all kinds of warnings about looking directly at the sun with a telescope; today they all learned the dangers of looking at a full moon with a deep sky telescope. We're all semi-blind now.

Now that I've got it all cleaned up and the mirrors collimated, I need to spend some time balancing it. I can see why Meade didn't stick with this design, it's really hard to work with the mirrors and the counter-weight system. Still, we're looking forward to some good viewing over the next winter.