Thanks Reggie. Yeah, you have to have priorities. It can rain anytime but oppositions are only once a year lol. I actually got to see Jupiter briefly and even saw the GRS. The clouds soon came though.

I had to wait until I could see Polaris to align the EQ5. In fact, bizarrely, it was the only star I could see for a while.



This gizmo seriously takes the strain out of alignment. Earlier I had a weird problem with the EQ5 RA clutch. When the RA was locked the locking lever was making contact with the slow motion knob when the OTA was at a certain declination. I just haven't encountered this before. It was like it had shifted in some way. I fixed it by unscrewing the lever itself and taking it off. I then discovered that it can apparently be rotated into a different position and screwed back on. The lever clears the slo mo knob again now when fully tightened.



It's a 'Sky-Watcher' EQ5, which as far as I know is identical to its Celestron equivalent. Probably manufactured by Synta. Honestly, I thought setting the EQ5 up this year was going to be straightforward ROTFL!

It's raining now and the EQ5 is under its tarpaulin.

Bloody typical lol.

 

Well, I got to see Jupiter a day before opposition. Humidity wasn't good and best magnification was about 130x. I saw the GRS though lol.



This is a screenshot from SN7.

 

I can definitely see the GRS on that Reggie!

 

I had a much better view of Jupiter Sunday night/Monday morning. The conditions were much better and I got 180x with a 5mm Vixen SLV. Jupiter was so bright I needed to stack Baader Neodymium and Baader Single Polariser filters to stop the glare. I'm a happier bunny now.