Yesterday I sold my C8 OTA and bought a used Cave Astrola 8" f/7 Newt on their "premium" heavy duty pedestal mount. It's in great condition except for the mirror coatings (oxidized) and some dust. I cleaned up the dust and washed the mirrors, did a quickie job of collimation with the Cheshire, then waited for the clouds to part... and waited... and waited...

Finally at 10:30pm, a few small sucker holes opened up. I rolled it out of my garage onto the sidewalk. I just wanted to get a look at some stars so that I could get a sense of the optical quality of the scope. Back in the early 80's, I had used a 6" Cave at the school where I taught and had been very impressed. Would this Cave live up to the expectations created by that earlier experience?

The seeing was pretty good, much to my surprise. I aimed the scope at Rigel at 32x and the image was very good -- no surprise at that power. I then put in my 4.8mm Nagler, and the image was tauntingly good -- but the clouds quickly swallowed up Rigel. Darn.

A light mist began coming down, so I rolled the scope back under my garage door and waited. My hopes were diminishing.

I noticed a large and expanding sucker hole opening up upwind to the west. It kept expanding and expanding -- after several minutes, it reached Sirius, so I aimed the scope at M41, one of my favorite oc's. Beautiful at 32x, it nearly filled the limited field on my 1.25" 45mm Plossl (kinda like looking through a tube! ).

When I looked up again, nearly the entire southern sky up to the equator had cleared! I quickly aimed the scope at M42 and the Trapezium, one of my favorite objects. At 32x, the view was good -- but not impressive. I popped in the 4.8mm Nagler, and the view at 297x was good but over-magnified. Still, the stellar images showed textbook diffraction patterns. My hopes for this scope were increasing.

I then popped in my 9mm Nagler and had to go find my socks -- they were blown off! The view of M42 -- right there on my light polluted street, with a sodium vapor streetlight glaring down upon me -- was one of the best I've ever seen. I've seen more nebulosity and more detail, but the contrast was exceptional, with the dark bands contrasting boldly with the glowing gases. Also, the stellar images were perfect pinpricks of light, with no wavering, scintillating or shimmying around. The fifth and sixth members of the Trap were perfect glowing pinpricks, not the coming and going phantoms they often are.

After getting lost in that beauty for about ten minutes, I decided to hunt for Saturn, but unfortunately it was too low by then (11:00pm) and lost in the clouds to the west. Furthermore, my fifteen minutes of reprieve from the clouds were over -- a vast bank was quickly rolling in. I took a last look at M42 and the Trap, then watched as it faded from view behind the clouds.

My hopes are hight for this new scope. I can't wait to see what it does with new coatings on the mirrors and a careful job of collimation. Yes!