Minhlead

I do believe they do. Infact I am suspecting one reason that change their mind about how to handle my returning of the filter is that they saw my post here and your supports.

Yet them seems really confident with their QC.

i thought it is guaranteed with the PE grade etalon?

Haha. Thanks but I surely hope it would not come to that. I was livid when I got the email but after calm down I was ready to accept my fate, just that I will recommend every one of my astrophotography folks to stay away from Daystar. Here in VN we have a growing community of DSOer and some of us are eyeing solar observation/imaging as the next step. I am the first to jump the gun but others will follow suit if the result is promising.

So my rodeo with Daystar wasn't ended as expected (kinda). After my last update here. I sent an email to Daystar explaining that after testing it with the sun, I feel that I cannot accept the filter and want to exchange it. Daystar send me an email saying this Which really [removed word] me off. Not only they refuse to acknowledge the problem. They suggest me to get a Quantum PE instead. What kind of suggestion is this? If I got 10k$ to shell out to a Quantum PE I would not waste my time with Daystar and get a 152mm double stack and be done with it. I understand that every solar filter have some degree of unhomogenity in the etalon. But what i am disputing is the unhomogenity and scratches on the trimming filter, which is not supposed to have them. And my Quark have these problems on arrival no less. And suggesting that scratches, blotches that cannot be cleaned in a collimated light path will not affect the view is just nonsense. But yesterday I was having something else occupied my mind and did not have time to response to Daystar. Then today, out of the blue they send me another email telling me to ship it back. So I guess it is settled for now. I'll be shipping the filter back to Daystar and hopefully get back a better one without problem. Thanks for your helps, guys.

You are too kind. Fingers crossed here too.

Okay so I heard back from Daystar. They told me that the lab was reassured that the defects was not there when it ship. But the packaging was still intact, the original shipping label and the transparent ducktape underneath them is still intact when I got them. I check with the courier and they told me the item went through Vietnamese custom without opening (I attached a photo of the shipping package when I received it below). So I really confused as to what went wrong. Anyway, Daystar offered me a replacement with free shipping back and forth. I want to exchange it but I really does not want to wait for another 2 months for around the world shipping. But I guess I have no other options. Thank guys for your help and moral support. Really needed it.

That's really suck to hear. I am curious too. They can simply do the check up and skip spending hundreds on shipping fee, wasting valuable resource. Why would they not?

Oh. The SCSAstro I presume? I heard the late owner of SCSAtro have some quarrel with Daystar. After the dealer stop selling the quark Daystar came in and handle the warranty for you? If so I think the CS was not so bad?

They send you prepaid label for all 6 times you return and then ship them back to you free of charge? Where did you buy your quark from? Icstars official store or a 3rd party dealer?

Thank you for your kind words. I do hope so. I am still kicking myself for not going for the Lunt

How did you pay for the shipping fee?

It seem god roll the dice every time a Quark ships. I am just unlucky I guess. But the rate if getting a bad one seems alarmingly high.

I guess the writing was on the wall, just that I was too naive. Hope my experience here could be of some guide to any other looking to buy a Quark. How was your resolved? Thanks. I do hope so.

And the worst part is that due to the afraid of getting a defective one like this, I emailed Daystar asking them do a second QC on my unit before shipping since sending it back and forth between the States and VIetnam will be extremely expensive. Jen at Daystar replied and told me specifically that's she'll see to it that my order get the extra care. And she guaranteed me that she did a second "sun testing" on mine before shipping. If this was the unit that supposedly received "extra care" then how would the normal ones treated? I was extremely dissapointed with Daystar. I got a lot of warning on Daystar's abysmal QC but seeing that Jen and Tiffany being so interactive with customers I think I could get lucky. Apparently I was not. Makes it very hard to recommend a Daystar filter to anyone who will ask me. Hopefully things will come to a fruitful end. Thank you guys for your support.

Thank you. Let see what Daystar have to say about this. I'll update the progress of this here.

I contacted Daystar but I highly doubt I can get out of this without any additional fee since mine is now at Vietnam and shipping it to US is super expensive.

I paid the full 1195$ plus 20$ shipping.

I am extremely disappointed in Daystar now that the filter is in Vietnam I could not return it to them

I bought it new from icstars store. Since I am from Vietnam and any back and forth shipping can be prohibitedly expensive I emailed daystar ask for a second QC. They agreed to do so. I am extremely disappointed that I got a scratched one on arrival. It is as if they intended to ship a defect one to me.

So I jumped the gun on my Quark chromosphere despite the bad reviews about Daystar's QC. On arrival the red side of the filter have some very noticable scratches and some part that looks like unhomogenity on the optics that I can see quite well when turn the filter to light source (see attached photo and picture). Since the light output from the filter is at very large F ratio (F/30 in my case), i am afraid that the scratches will shows on photos. Anyone can confirm this? Also would the unhomogenity like pictured affect the contrast uniformity of the filter? I am the first time user of solar fikter and the weather here is not up for a test. 20210112_192600.mp4

Thanks!

Here are my second attempt at DSO. Taken with Sony A7s, Vixen Polaris, Takumar 200mm at F5.6 185 subs (45 mins integration) 15s ISO 3200. I forgot the dark frames so after stacking there are a few dead pixel that show some red lines on the final photos

wow, really? Thanks! I think I'll give it a try

Looks like the denoise algorithm of Astra is somewhat better than lightroom but you still lose detail when do the denoising in post so I'm looking to optimize my stacking workflow. But thanks for the suggestion