DRT

That sounds excellent, Mark.

That is a very nice collection of glass to have in a travel bag  

4 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Keep us posted Derek, mines about to start it's second week as a guest at HMRC Coventry.

Dave

Will do, Dave.

How long did yours spend in the care of Daystar?

Simon at Widescreen Centre emailed today to let me know that Daystar have identified/know the fault from the picture and will replace the filter under warranty. 

Windescreen Centre are taking care of logistics. 

?

Thanks, Ken - much appreciated

18 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

Keep trying, it should work.

It the largest active solar forum on the web.

If pain persists contact me and I'll help.

 

Thanks for the offer - have sent you a PM  

I tried three times and cannot get through solar chat's registration process. Grrrr.

43 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

The prime forum for anything solar.  

Second only to the Solar section on SGL?    

6 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

I would post a piture of the defect on Solarchat, plenty of expert advice about such problems on there. 

Thanks, Peter. I hadn't heard of that place before so will give it a go.

Sounds like a nightmare, Dave.

I've contacted Widescreen Centre as I bought it from them new 16 months ago and am hoping they will offer to sort out the logistics. I'm sure they will have done it many times before and shipping it back with incoming stock might speed up the customs process.

I have had a look through the Quark this morning through the gaps in the clouds. The good news is that it is still showing lots of detail and doesn't appear to be trashed by the marks on the lens. However, when you move the field of view slowly across the disk, especially in full brightness, you can see a shadow in the shape of the pattern shown in the picture above moving across the disk. The part that is covered by the shadow is visibly dimmer and shows less detail than the clear part of the FOV. Whilst this fault hasn't rendered the device completley   unusable it is certainly a degradation from where it once was.

24 minutes ago, Moonshane said:

It does unfortunately look like delamination of two layers in this filter.  I suspect it could be readily replaced under warranty.

...and be away for the duration of the summer  

Cheers - I think the question in the thread title has been comprehensively answered 

I just hope there is a solution. Will report back when I hear from Simon.

Thanks for all the replies and pictures.

Just now, Floater said:

Just had a look at mine, Derek, and see nothing like your pic.

I have had bad units(!) but I didn't take a look at the filter in those; just knew the view wasn't matching my SolarMax. ?

Simon at Widescreen was extremely helpful and I'm sure he'll have the answer. Hope all goes well. ?

Cheers, Gordon. 

The Sun has decided to go in for the day so I probably won't be able to look through it until tomorrow. I used it last week and it seemed fine.

4 minutes ago, Stu said:

It doesn't look like fungus to me Derek, from the picture it looks more like some sort of stress cracking.

Had you checked before or do you just not know if it has always been there? Views ok still?

I really have no idea when it appeared, Stu. The picture isn't as clear as when you look at it close up and my first thought when I saw it clearly was that it was some sort of degeneration of a lens coating.

I just found this article: http://myphotojourney.co.uk/daystar-quark-humidity-issue/

I don't want to dismantle it at no doubt my 5 year warranty will go down the tubes but it is possible there is some sort of internal moisture that is causing this.

Thanks, charl.

I have sent the picture to Simon at Widescreen Centre. I found the order confirmation and it's actually only 16 months old. It's always been kept in a cool, dry place in a foam lined flight case so I'm struggling to see how it could be fungus, although that certainly is what it looks like. 

I have owned my Quark for around two years and have always been delighted with the views. I have read all of the horror stories of faulty units and bad customer service but enough experienced observers have looked through my Quark to convince me it is a good one. 

Until today...

ive been doing a little spring cleaning of my Astro kit and noticed that there was quite a gathering of dust inside the eyepiece holder of the Quark. I unscrewed the eyepiece holder and cleaned the outer surface of the red glass filter and surrounding area. As I was doing this I noticed this pattern on the inside of the filter...

?

Please, if you have a Quark can you take a look and tell me if you see the same thing?

Alternatively, if you were unlucky enough to have a bad one did it look like the picture above?

Thanks

Derek

I'm now booked - but unfortunately only for Saturday night as Friday is Mrs DRT's birthday and I need to be at work on Monday morning. 

Looking forward to it  

You could try varying the temperature in which you are trying to remove the screws. If you have been trying when the scope is at ambient room temperature leave it somewhere cold for a while and try again, or vice versa.

6 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

Fabulous!  My eyelid does the job just fine.

Doug.

I'm glad you posted that, Doug. I thought it was a cricket box and was quite confused as to why they would be popular here

This beautiful little beast arrived this morning...

A big thanks to @Stu for some of the most OCD packaging I have ever had the pleasure of fighting my way through

4 minutes ago, Moonshane said:

Good point buddy. My 25mm were both new from one source. Of the others all are the same style (I.e. pairs have the same nose inset) other than the 32mm which do not.  not used any other than the 25/15s yet though.

Will do a review when I have done maybe later on in the summer :0)

That would be great, Shane. It might debunk another Astro-myth or confirm common belief that it's much best to have matched pairs.

2 hours ago, Moonshane said:

My latest iteration.  cannot use the 20mm and 11mm pairs as they will now be wrapped until my anniversary at the end of the month.  just enough space for a pair of 8mm and a 9mm Delite.  no money though now until crimbo unless I sell something I want to keep!

That is a fine looking case, Shane   

I suspect that you didn't manage to buy all of those Plossls as pairs from the same batch so would be interested to know whether or not you have noticed any material difference between those that are true pairs and those that you picked-up individually?

Perhaps a subject for a review thread?

Just to clarify my previous post, I wasn't suggesting that reporting it is ineffective, it is ebay that is ineffective in stopping it re-appearing on a regular basis. 

11 minutes ago, Seafury said:

Yes it was on ebay I put a couple of bids on it but checked today and it had disappeared altogether

It's a longstanding scam. The same kit keeps appearing in different ads and the the ad gets cancelled. I think a number of people here have reported it to eBay many times but they seem ineffective in stopping it.