FLO

You emailed us only this morning, a little after midnight at 01:35am. We were in bed then! My colleague replied when we reopened. He suggested you discard the Astrozap heater tape and has arranged you receive a Lynx Astro heater tape free of charge. No need for drama 🙂

Some time ago, Grant and I visited Dave and Derek at Rowan. We were looking for a small UK engineering company to make a premium, compact, AltAz mount. They liked the idea but revealed they were already working on a larger Alt-Az mount with higher payload. They showed us a prototype of what later became the Rowan AZ100. It has of course sold well and owners are delighted but it is this new smaller AZ75 that we think will be most popular. From what I hear it will be precisely the kind of mount we were looking for 🙂

Regarding price, during the pandemic materials costs have increased significantly. This has understandably increased cost of manufacturing. Rowan have absorbed the higher costs and will continue to do so a while longer but retail prices will need to increase later this year. So if you have been planning to order a Rowan mount or accessory we recommend you place an order before year end. HTH, Steve

Following the success of the Rowan AZ-100 Alt-Azimuth mount, Rowan will soon release a more compact model with a payload capacity around 15kg per side. Like the Rowan AZ100, the AZ75 will be available with / without high resolution encoders. Starting price is expected to be around £549 for the non-encoder model. At SGL @Stu and @Alan White have kindly agreed to kick its tyres so Rowan have loaned them both a pre-production mount. We are looking forward to hearing from them. Final design and specification have yet to be confirmed and will depend to some degree on the feedback provided by Stu and Alan. The new mount will be added to our website and be available to buy soon.

We have more StellaMira (and StellaLyra) products in the pipeline but are unable to share info today. Sorry.

These has been a long time coming so we are very pleased to announce their arrival 🙂 StellaMira 90mm ED Triplet Refractor StellaMira 2" 0.8x Reducer / Flattener for 90mm ED Triplet Main features: Triplet optics with an ED glass element equal to FPL53. QC checked in the UK. Minimum 0.95 Strehl ratio (test report included with every telescope). 2.5" Rack & Pinion, dual speed focuser with 1:10 fine focusing and integral rotator. Sturdy but lightweight Carbon Fibre tube with CNC machined aluminium fittings. An optically matched 0.8x StellaMira Reducer / Field Flattener is also available that enables imaging at f/4.8. When used with the reducer it provides an evenly illuminated imaging circle suitable for sensor sizes up to and including APS-C.

Have had the Mazda three years and counting. Prior to that a Toyota. My taste in cars has never been extravagant.

You must be confusing us with a competitor 😁 FLO reinvests year-on-year. It is how we afford staff and premises and the reason I drive a Mazda, not a Mercedes 🚗 Steve

We now have a shiny new Mezzanine floor 🙂 It covers the rear of our warehouse and provides an additional 70+ square meters of floor area. We spent Mon-Wed relocating stock so the fitters could install the Mezzanine Thu & Fri. Then, over Sat & Sun we moved stock back in, fitted new racking and played with used a new electric liftywotsit to move stock onto the mezzanine. The project went well and finished on time so we reopened today and have begun clearing the backlog of orders. We will probably be back up to speed later this week...

Generally speaking, we are still experiencing long lead times and low availability due to transport issues and component / materials shortages. However, whenever stock is available we buy as much as we can and have invested significantly in other more easily available (relatively speaking) products. I.e. iOptron, ZWO, StellaMira, StellaLyra, LynxAstro, HitecAstro & Astro Essentials. Those products we source direct from the factory or manufacture ourselves in-house. So, though the supply situation remains difficult, we are carrying more stock at our warehouse than ever before. Hence our recent expansion 🙂

We are looking for a larger warehouse but suitably sized ones are thin on the ground (historically, Devon property developers underestimated business growth) so we are extending the one we have. We will continue looking. Steve

Orders placed before Midday tomorrow/Wednesday for in-stock items will be dispatched but those received thereafter will ship the following week. I will add this detail to our post. HTH 🙂

That looks like something out of a Batman movie! 🦇 Think smaller, lighter and brighter with white walls, blue & orange racking and a mezzanine floor 🙂

Due to continued growth we are expanding our warehouse, workshop and production facility in Exeter. This will enable us to stock and support an even wider range of astronomy products. The expansion requires our premises be closed Thursday & Friday (30th Sep & 1st Oct). Orders placed before Midday tomorrow/Wednesday for in-stock items will be dispatched but those received thereafter will ship the following week. Thank you sincerely for your patience and understanding. We also want to say a sincere heartfelt THANK YOU for your continued support 🤗 Best wishes, Adrian, Alex, Annette, Ann, Chris, Cody, Dave, Grant, Ian, James, Katie, Lisa, Matt, Rob & Steve.

The situation isn't good for most products, not only astro. Generally speaking, we continue to receive stock at our warehouse monthly but quantities are lower than we'd like due to high demand and materials / component shortages. Entire shipments routinely sell out before they dock. Someone waiting patiently for spare stock to be available before they place an order will likely wait several months while stock is allocated to those who have already placed an order. On those rare occasions we do have spare stock then everyone who clicked our website’s blue ‘Notify me when in stock’ button receives an auto-email notification. We might have only a handful but 100+ emails are sent so they sell out in only an hour or two. If you are able and don't mind waiting I recommend you place an order. But please be aware our dispatch estimates are only estimates. The sands are continuously shifting so it is near impossible for us to provide dependable updates. Regarding prices. The cost of manufacture, shipping and transport have all increased. This has and will result in higher retail prices. Where will it end? I don’t think anyone really knows. The car industry is perhaps a good indicator of where things are heading. Currently most new cars have a 4-6x month lead time. They expect this will improve slowly over 12-18x months. HTH, Steve

One ZWO Wifi Extender for ASIAIR Pro. Customer Return Faulty on arrival, subsequently repaired / replaced by ZWO but open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £39.00 £35.00 (saving £4.00)

One Optolong L-Pro Light Pollution Broadband Filter 2" Mounted. Customer Return Customer not happy with performance with their setup. Decided to go a different route. Perfect condition, open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £142.00 £127.00 (saving £15.00)

One ADM Dual Saddle Upgrade for NEQ6 new-type & AZ-EQ6-GT. Customer Return We sent the wrong clamp out due to a labelling error. This is for NEQ6 new-type & AZ-EQ6-GT mounts. Saddle looks perfect, no marks but scruffy box. Full manufacturers warranty. £136.00 £122.00 (saving £14.00)

One Sky-Watcher Field Flattener for Esprit-100. Customer Return No longer required, customer went a different route with their scope choice. Optics look good, a few marks on the flattener body and open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £189.00 £170.00 (saving £19.00)

One Sky-Watcher Counterweights 5kg EQ5/EQ5-GT, HEQ5, NEQ6, EQ6r. Customer Return Due to a labelling error we sent out the wrong version, this is indeed a 20mm shaft counterweight for EQ5/EQ5-GT, HEQ5, NEQ6 or EQ6r mounts. Open box, scruffy packaging but weight all OK. Full manufacturers warranty. £42.00 £37.00 (saving £5.00)

One ZWO Hand Controller for EAF. Customer Return Arrived faulty and subsequently repaired. Works great but open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £37.00 £33.00 (saving £4.00)

One Oklop Padded Bag & Backpack for EQ3 and AZ GoTo Mounts and Tripods. Customer Return Wrong size for customers needs. Looks perfect but open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £65.00 £58.00 (saving £7.00)

One Sky-Watcher Classic 150P Dobsonian. Customer Return Too large for customer. Unopened but unfortunately the box was battered in transit. Now all complete and ready to go but very scruffy packaging. Full manufacturers warranty. £295.00 £265.00 (saving £30.00)

One Scopetech Mount Zero. Customer Return Arrived stiffer than customer expected, we have since tuned this and it's working lovely. A few small marks from usage if you look closely. Open box. Full manufacturers warranty. £379.00 £341.00 (saving £38.00)

One William Optics Adjustable Flattener for ZS73. Customer Return Returned with the scope. Looks perfect, not in original box. Full manufacturers warranty. £169.00 £152.00 (saving £17.00)