Hi all -

Well, I've had my 600 for a few weeks now, and I've actually had a few nights
that were clear! My initial comments relative to the mount will surely echo
what others have said.

In short, it is terrific -- extremely solid and stable. I'm mainly using my
Traveler on it, and as you might expect this combination is incredibly stable.
I've also put my C8 on it, with similar results. While I shouldn't be
surprised, the difference between this mount and my Great Polaris is really
quite dramatic, particularly in terms of stability. Of course, at roughly 5x
the price, the differences should be quite dramatic!

Also, while it is much bigger than the Great Polaris, I've found that setup time
isn't that much longer -- maybe 10 minutes instead of 5 minutes to get the mount
set and roughly polar aligned.

Pointing accuracy so far has been pretty good, with most (but not all) items
showing up in the field of view of a 9mm Nagler. I should note that both times
I've used the mount I used the one star + Polaris method, but only had time to
do one or two alignment passes. I would guess with further practice and greater
precision on my part that pointing accuracy will continue to improve.

I still need to tweak my C8 to make it orthogonal, but that will have to wait
until I have more time. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the mount, and am
looking forward to having more time with it. Just need these clouds to go away!
Hopefully before too long I can get the Traveler out and try a few experiments
with unguided photography.

Best regards,

Paul Schroeder