Veeco Instruments: Color on Quarter (25.07 ) : Merriman notes VECO last night reported blowout results with Q3 orders up 129% QoQ. Guidance and a book-to-bill ratio above 1.0 provides strong FY10 visibility driven by LED tool orders. They note LED strength driven by TV backlighting and visibility is expected to remain strong in '10. The co's overall backlog rose from $160 mln to $287 mln. They note Q4 gross margin should improve to 43-44%. Veeco announced an equity offering of 5 mln shares, which they expect to support its growing LED/Solar business. They are rasing their FY10 est to $1.60 from $1.20 vs the $0.82 consensus. They believe Veeco is entering a multi-year LED growth cycle and should trade at a range of $37-40 up from their prior $28-30 range.