LOL!!!
Most disappointing telescope purchase.
Started by explore, 09/09/2003 12:43AM
Posted 09/09/2003 09:30PM
#10
Posted 09/09/2003 09:36PM
#11
My old camera-shop-purchased 50mm altazimuth refractor with Ramsden or such eyepieces in around 1969. I remember seeing Jupiter, a white ball with no detail; Saturn where you couldn't distinguish the rings as they crossed the planet's disk; a pink Moon and Alberio as a football-shape with one end blue and the other end yellow. No one else had a telescope where I lived (lots of rifle scopes) so I had nothing to compare this to. Thirty two years later I bought my second scope, an 8" Discovery Dob...what a difference!
Posted 09/10/2003 12:22AM
#13
An Orion 80mm f/5; at the time I bought this I was a newbie so I had inflated expectations of what it should do. I couldn't push it over 80X or so because it "fuzzed out"; couldn't sell it fast enough, and then I did some poking around and wound up with a Criterion RV6, which had a very small and hard for me to use finderscope. Guess what works really well as a finderscope: an 80mm f/5 refractor operating at about 12X. Of course now I've figured out that I can run that up to about 50X and get some nice wide views, then let the longer focal length newt take over.....
Posted 09/10/2003 02:29AM
#14
8" LXD-55 SN. After 3 replacement mounts from Meade, it still never worked right. I don't even have time to list all the other problems this scope had. I ended up using it for parts to make other mounts of mine GOTO. After stripping away the motors and polar scope, I threw the original mount in the trash, and kept the OTA, which is decent, but not excellent.
Posted 09/10/2003 03:55AM
#15
I've had a few contenders for the title of my "most disappointing telescope purchase". After some thought, I'd say that slot is reserved for the JMI Next Gen 6" reflector that I had for a weekend. That scope only has 1 web review that I know of, and yet that review is so glowing, that I was more anxious to try the JMI NGT 6, than I was to try any consumer product that I've been interested in for a looonnng time.
Thoughts of that scope consumed my free time. It was the sole focus of my attention for the period where I awaited it's arrival. When I got it, I was so horrified that the scope never even saw starlight.
That scope was a disappointment on so many levels that it's tough to even recall them all.
1st off -- Despite a phone plea by me for the seller to pack it carefully, it arrived damaged & unusable due to thoughtless packaging and reckless handling.
2nd -- Instead of "like new" it arrived showing heavy usage bordering on abuse, to include a primary mirror coated with years of dust that concealed a pitted primary mirror when canned air was used to gently remove some of the incredible amount of dust. (I'm talking FUZZ, not the usual & expected.)
3rd -- Design ridiculousness -- This scope has small dia. plastic ball end truss struts, & a very insecure attachment method for all of it's many parts. A very rickety, but surprisingly heavy tripod was an extra cost option. Basically, it cannot be properly stabilized to take advantage of the theoretical mirror quality, even if the mirror was in good shape. There is NO way that I'd recommend this design, despite the fact that it once was produced by one of the premier US scope accessory designers at a fairly high cost.
4th -- Probably the most disappointing thing about this scope was that it was sold to me by a retailer that I'd believed to be of highest reputation. He did take the scope back. I'll give him good marks for that. But, he should've never offered this junk forsale & after I shipped it back to him, it took a followup phone call to one of his employees just to get him to eventually credit my account. The weird thing was that when I emailed him about sending the scope back, the guy actually agreed with everything I said about it. I can only wonder why he saw fit to sell it to me in the 1st place.
I wound up losing respect for the retailer, the maker, the designer, the previous owner...... etc.
Pretty much, I'd have to say that an optic that actually causes illusions and good will to be dashed is a pretty disappointing scope. I'm still cautiously optimistic, but that's one example of a true disappointment that I'll not soon forget.
Mike Swaim
Thoughts of that scope consumed my free time. It was the sole focus of my attention for the period where I awaited it's arrival. When I got it, I was so horrified that the scope never even saw starlight.
That scope was a disappointment on so many levels that it's tough to even recall them all.
1st off -- Despite a phone plea by me for the seller to pack it carefully, it arrived damaged & unusable due to thoughtless packaging and reckless handling.
2nd -- Instead of "like new" it arrived showing heavy usage bordering on abuse, to include a primary mirror coated with years of dust that concealed a pitted primary mirror when canned air was used to gently remove some of the incredible amount of dust. (I'm talking FUZZ, not the usual & expected.)
3rd -- Design ridiculousness -- This scope has small dia. plastic ball end truss struts, & a very insecure attachment method for all of it's many parts. A very rickety, but surprisingly heavy tripod was an extra cost option. Basically, it cannot be properly stabilized to take advantage of the theoretical mirror quality, even if the mirror was in good shape. There is NO way that I'd recommend this design, despite the fact that it once was produced by one of the premier US scope accessory designers at a fairly high cost.
4th -- Probably the most disappointing thing about this scope was that it was sold to me by a retailer that I'd believed to be of highest reputation. He did take the scope back. I'll give him good marks for that. But, he should've never offered this junk forsale & after I shipped it back to him, it took a followup phone call to one of his employees just to get him to eventually credit my account. The weird thing was that when I emailed him about sending the scope back, the guy actually agreed with everything I said about it. I can only wonder why he saw fit to sell it to me in the 1st place.
I wound up losing respect for the retailer, the maker, the designer, the previous owner...... etc.
Pretty much, I'd have to say that an optic that actually causes illusions and good will to be dashed is a pretty disappointing scope. I'm still cautiously optimistic, but that's one example of a true disappointment that I'll not soon forget.
Mike Swaim
Funding Member
