Posts Made By: Steve Sands

The vast majority of the time this occurs because someone's account has been deleted. Any ratings associated with that account go bye bye. This happens rather frequently. As far as tracking this activity....it really isn't worth the time or effort IMHO!

John - I have never heard of any degrading of the actual etalon. I spoke to Andy Lunt about this when I was in Tucson at ALCON a couple of years ago. He stated that, given proper care, the etalon should never need servicing regardless of use.

I DID have to have the elements replaced in a 30mm blocking filter, but that was due to a coating failure issue (i.e. "rusting") similar to what happened with many PST's. Andy said that the cause of that particular issue was remedied.

Steve

I use a pair in my Denk II binoviewer....it does not get much better than that!!!! They are sweet eyepieces.

I would say that whoever bought it out from under you did you a big favor. This person would be a real P.I.T.A to deal with! In answer to your question, though....it was indeed quite unreasonable and very rude behavior on the seller's part.

Hi Jim,

I was just on Mauna Kea with a group from Astronomy Magazine as part of a transit of Venus trip. You will definitely need a 4WD to get to the top (they require it). However, visitors are not allowed at the top after dark. You can observe at the 9000 foot level at the Onizuka Center, but there is no camping and really nowhere to camp. When we were at the 14,000 foot level there was a 55 mph hour wind, volcanic dust blowing EVERYWHERE and a wind chill in the teens. We could barely stand up without being blown down. Couple that with 40 percent lower oxygen levels and it makes for a hostile environment. After 2 hours of being up there with David Eicher and Alex Filippenko we were ready to get the heck out of there!!! And this was early JUNE! Alex told us that even the professional research astronomers have to justify why they need to be on the summit and not in the relay station. There is only one public area that I am aware of and that is a tiny viewing area to catch a glimpse of Keck 1. No other buildings are open to visitors.

They have public viewing at the 9000 foot level every night and I believe that they said you can stay for your own observing, but you would need to verify that. Even if they allowed viewing at the top, you would need to bolt your scope to the ground and hope for the best because they said that high winds were a norm. Google "Onizuka Center Mauna Kea". They have a pretty informative site.

You might investigate Haleakala on Maui. It is at 10,000 feet and a National Park. The views up there were spectacular during the day!!

As new ads come in, the older current ads get bumped down. If your ad is showing up in "My Classifieds" it is still there, it's just way down the list. You will either need to repost it to put it back on top again (temporarily!) or pay for a featured ad that stays at the top in the featured section for a certain length of time. The last ad I see you posted is a Wanted Ad for a Losmandy G11 GOTO that was posted this morning. The next ad prior to that one is a For Sale ad "Reposting For Edge HD800 with CGEM plus" posted on 7/14.

I think you will find the price pretty much set for new equipment releases such as the Canon 60Da.

I look for tax and shipping advantages. B&H Photo has it for $1,499 (like everyone else!), but they charge no sales tax unless you live in NY and the shipping is free. Also, right now they are offering a free case and SD memory card. Usually they are difficult to beat, IMHO.

Larry,

In the ad posting process you will get to a screen that says "Upload new file" with an option to Browse or Upload. Browse to where your image is on your computer and select the image. Then it will take you back to the Upload New File screen. You will see the file path to your image in the box. Select Upload and your picture will appear. Your images must be less than 500,000KB (.5MB) or they will not post.

You can repeat this process for other images you may have. You can also select which of the images you want to be the main image. This is the image that will appear at the top of the ad. The others will appear at the bottom of the ad.

I didn't laugh or snicker even one time while posting this! 8)

Hope that helps!
Steve

It is for that very reason that I refuse to patronize Orion and have told them so. If enough people take that stand, I think you will see a change in their policy!

You placed two ads on 8/6 which are both marked SOLD. So you are saying that you posted other ads since and they are not showing up? If so, are you sure that you are not receiving some sort of error during the ad creation process? Does it actually say that the ad has been posted at the end of the process? Some critical bits of information are missing here! :S