Minhlead

I already registered an account there. Stephen Ramsden there is a friend of mine, he has been extremely supportive and helpful. Will head over there now. Thanks

A few more shot from my Quark with the Sharpstar 107ph. So it's obvious the Quark really shines with larger aperture. First time I look through the Quark with my 107 I tought to myself: this scope is not going down anytime soon.

So I'd like to update my situation here since you guys has been so helpful, caring and I want you to see a fruitful end to this. After DS refuses to replace my Quark and went to issue a refund instead, I have been contacted by our custom office. They asking for the return shipment of the Quark that I sent out. Freaking typical custom office, they let billions of tax evading goods through every year and crashing down hard on hobbyist :(. But anyway, cornered, I hold my nose and buy another Quark from Highpoint Scientific just to have something to send back (DS wont accept my order again). After 2 months of waiting I got my second Quark. This time, no scratches. Phew! After 2 more months of waiting for some clear sky, I got my first light with it. I took this with my FRA400@F/7, QHY294C @ 8bit bin 2x2. Not bad, considering I am shooting through some high clouds. Thanks all for caring and helpful advices, it helped me a lot morally. P/s: I have some questions if anyone can help me with this it'd be great! 1/ I have seen everyone suggesting a Mono camera would give you big advantage in solar Ha. But I think with an OSC and bin 2x2 (it averages out all 4 CFA pixels and then multiply the intensity by 4 then apply it, if I thow out the chrominance data, just use the luminance I got an equivalent of mono camera with 2x pixel size of the OSC (on my 294C case, it is about 9um after binning). This is equivalent to doing superpixel debayer on post processing. The only downside to this (that I know of) if frame rate since the camera still has to readout all 4 pixels then binning is done via software on computer side (I got about 20fps after careful ROI). The lost on resolution can be counted out since the Quark's barlow got so close at F/7 in you'd be super oversampled at under about 10um anyway. I do not see anyone doing this. Can anyone shed some light on this? Am I missing something here? 2/ my QHY294C only support record video in 8 bit mode. 16bit mode reserves specifically for stills. I am just wondering if using 8 bits can give inferior to 16 bits. (I am not seeing it on mine but wonder if it can gets better?) A quick google search reveal 16 bit may give you some advantage when SNR is high (and mine is). Any thoughts?

I will try to learn using a flat cap for flat calibration. But I am waiting for better weather. I'll try Solarchat. Thank you!

I think the main reason is that they just afraid that the replacement is gonna go bad and they have to compensate me on the shipping the filter back and forth from VN to the States which is astronomically expensive. From that I can tell even DS does not seem very confident with their own product. Since the custom here in VN pressed me for the returning Quark (I listed it as temporary export, reimport later) I went to high point scientific, hold my nose and buy another Quark from them just to have some thing sending back. Here is my topic on my second quark https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/373791-a-new-method-to-test-your-quark-uniformitycleanliness/

There no problem that a bit of duct tape can't solve. If there are, use more duct tape :))

Đi you manage to find the time do the test?

There would be a lot of chicken then because I wouldn't dare too :))

PA is a problem. That's why I am looking to do a permanent setup. Because having the scope put on a very clear night an unable to PA and have to spend time to do drift aligment is suck. But PA is not big a problem as some of my Southern friends whom have to use pier/modified counterweight and CEM mount design to have it work at all

No I dont have the problem of sun rising low. My problem is polaris rising too low for polar alignment. And my friends in Southern districts have counterweight gets blocked by the tripod since the mount almost stays horizontal after polar alignment. You keep the scope out with just a tarp over it? If I do that in my backyard, my scope would be stolen in a heartbeat. Not to mention the electronics would sure go haywire under the scorching sun and lashing rain of a tropical region. Don't you worry about the moisture and heat that would cause problem for your optics and electronics?

Oh ok. Could you please share your setup/cover here? I am looking to make a ROR shed but if a cover works I will consider it too.

You can do this test inside the house. Just shine a flashlight (a white LED) down the objective and keep it still while you are taking exposure

Anyone? I'd like to hear from @Davey-T

So after my last rodeo with Daystar (for those who care, read more of it here https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/369967-bad-quark-chromosphere-on-arrival/?tab=comments#comment-4018491) I received a few emails from my courier asking me for the reimport item (since the Quark that I sent out listed as temporary export- reimport later) , otherwise the custom could get involved. I have no way but hold my nose and order another quark (this time from Highpoint Scientific). The quark arrived today and thank god, there are no visible defect that I can see. One of my friend told me about a simple way that you can test your quark's uniformity and the blocking filter cleanliness by shining a smartphone's flashlight down the tube asembly with the quark and a camera at the end focused at infinity (your light source must stays still all the exposure duration, otherwise the result gets blurry, I rest my phone's flash light on top of the dew shield and take exposure). Take a 30 sec exposure at unity gain and stretch the result. Here is what I got: My friend claimed that the spots that you are seeing are dust motes inside the quark, behind the barlow. The scratches-like marks are the tools marks that left behind after Mica cleaving of the mica sheets that make up the Quark's etalon. And by looking at this picture you can get a very good idea of how uniform/dirty or clean the optics of your Quark is without opening one and most likely damage yours. It could provide you a more visual way of testing your Quark if you do not have the Sun (Like I am). Now I do not know how accurate these claims are, but the explaination does looks plausible to me. Especially the scratch like pattern look suspiciously like mica sheets after cleaving under microscope. I tried to rotate the camera only and take the picture again, the pattern also rotates (implies it is not on my camera). Then I rotate the quark+ camera assembly and the pattern stays (which implies the pattern indeed comes from the quark, not the scope itself). No amount of cleaning the 2 blocking/trimming filter of the quark seems to make the dust motes go away implies the dust (or whatever it is) is inside the quark. Could anyone here with a quark replicate what I did and post the result here and some one with better understanding of the physics behind the Quark could shed some light on this I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Solarscope use the same manufacturing process as DS I believe. They just use active cooling for CWL adjustment instead of passive cooling?

If only they can be reasoned with. Custom department here in VN operate on an extremely rigid bureaucratic protocol. But there's no problem some bribing can not solve here in VN.

Mine too. But I still have to figure out a way to deal with the re import. Vnese custom department are just not to be messed with.

So it's final then. I would find a path to move on and hopefully my experience could be of indication to anyone who looking to buy a Quark: just don't. It maybe good quark out there but the way DS treat their customer are just horrible and they does not deserve your hard earned cash. I learned my lesson. Daystar, as every other astronomy equipment manufacturer, are having a very good year due to covid 19. Maybe that emboldened them and make they feel they could just ignore some customer dissatisfaction and still can make some quick buck. But I will tell anyone who would listen to not waste your time and money on a Quark. Thank you guys for your moral support and kind words.

My problem now is when I ship the filter out of my country I listed it as temporary export/re-import later. Without a reimport of the filter I could get into trouble since the custom department can deduct that I am trying to evade paying export tax when ship this out of the country in the first place. And VNese custom are not to be messed with. I may face fines of up to 20mil vnđ for this (about 800$) so one way or another I still have to get a Quark send back to me

What I am angry the most is the fact that Daystar decided to refund without my consent although I asked specifically for an exchange of defective product. They could have reach out to me first and tell it to my face that they cannot ship out a non scratched, non defective equipment (I am 100% okay with the non uniformity of the etalon, I know that 1000$ is like peanut money to solar observing). But no, they tricked me into sending the filter back on a promise that they would replace it only to refund the item without me knowing it. That's unacceptable and extremely unprofessional on their side.

Okay so Daystar decided to f---- me off here. They unilaterally decided to issue a refund without prior consent from me. Extremely disappointed with how daystar handle this. They're just literally giving their customer a big F--- off. I paid over 200$ in international shipping/import tax and invested a lot of time into waiting for my filter. Also I could get into trouble with custom department here in VN since I declared the item as temporary export/re import later. And I the item does not get re import It can be flagged as tax evasion for not paying the export tax.

Have you ever have to pay duty on returned goods?

The Quark has been delivered to Daystar on 20 Jan. Since then Tiffany told me to wait for the lab to "inspecting" my filter. But I have not gotten any update so far. How long this check up process usually take, Dave?

Tiffany has been very helpful to me too, one of the reason that I decided to jump the gun on a Quark despite the bad reviews are Jen and Tiffany are very friendly and respond quickly when I try to reach out to them. But it seems DS have some serious problems with their QC protocol. I think there should be a QC card that have every steps of the QC process documented, signed off by the person who performed it. That card or a copy of it must reach the final customer and people can know for a fact that what went wrong and who is responsible. So by feedback to the manufacturer, the customer also putting pressure into individual, not just the QC process as a whole. You'd be surprised with the work ethic of some guys. They are very happy to pack a notworking product and ship it out as long as they reach their daily quota. I used to run a manufacturing line for VNese manufacturer that used to have the same problem: quality varies greatly from unit to unit, dirty part, things not working on arrival, electronics have short lifespan etc... and since we streamlined our QC process with a feedback loop from customers we quickly weed out the problematic parts and improved customer experience vastly. It seems either Daystar is struggling with this or not willing to do so, which seems weird to me because paying for the return/servicing of defective product always outweight improving QC by a few order of magnitude. And bad QC is the most damaging thing that can be done to the company image.

They already increased the price once. I believe when it started the Quark is priced at 999$