Hello all,
Tonight we were 4 at the club in Brussels. Because the weather is very clear (but also very cold) we decided to use the ETX90 outside, linked with an electrical cable to the inside of our club's room and with the laptop and the webcam.
First thing: I've got a cold and it's verey cold and the only way to handle those instruments is with bare hands.
Second: the town had decided to place 2 very bright lamps very high, annoying us greatly as Juju and Tutu are so high in the sky too.
Third: the webcam (Logitech QuickCam VC) isn't perfectly aligned with the mirror (as the tube had been glued around the border of what used to be the webcam's lens) so it's a hunt for the picture on the screen.
It works because it's the ETX90 and I know where to place the planet in the viewfinder for the webcam.
The trick also is to focusing for the webcam (very different from focusing for eyepieces).
And a friend brought his newly bought Barlow 2x lens for Meade (non apochromatic, which seems to be required for the ETX90).
It's really interesting to see the difference of say Saturn (Tutu) with a 6.4 mm eyepiece and Tutu with a barlow 2x in between!!!!
That's my next investment!
However...
Fourth: when it was time to try the webcam with the Barlow lens, we managed to barely catch Juju (Jupiter) but the image was gone before we had the time to correct the focus!!! So, not only will the position of the planet be harder to find with a Barlow lens but also it's focus won't be the same as without the Barlow.
We gave up. I decided that the Moon should be the first object to look at through the Webcam and Barlow lens; it's a lot easier to find and lets more time to correct focusing.
Ahh; well I hope the cold didn't get worse.

Raoul