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moogoomonkey

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moogoomonkey

moogoomonkey

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Hi guys!

My shiny new telescope finally arrived! A SW 200P dobsonian. My first telescope :D. I first ordered it on 9th of December from Pulsar Optical/ Scopes 'n Skies/Astronomy and Nature centre as it came with a free red torch and had a competitive price.

I had been sent a paypal receipt but no order confirmation...

Curious I phoned them up the next day after I got home from school and a woman picked up, took down my number and then promised to call me back. No call...

The next day I called up again at lunchtime. They picked up promptly but it seemed as if the guy on the phone was sharing jokes with his friend whilst talking to me. this was really unprofessional with him but we eventually got to the fact that the order didn't go through properly. He then refunded me the money and I tried to order again but this time my paypal account was declined (probably because I'm under 18 and a lot of money is going out).

I then ordered the following evening (Wednesday) through my parents and we were sent a confirmation email with a delivery date of 18th December on it. Finally I can relax...

Over the next couple of days, I was checking to see of there was any tracking information available using the tool on the website. I was very concerned that by Friday, nothing had changed, it still said, 'processing order'.

We started phoning them to see if there was anyone in the office on the weekend as I had read somewhere that the showroom is open on weekends but no response.

On the supposed delivery date (Monday) the tracking option still said 'processing order' so we phoned them up multiple times, with them not picking up throughout the entire morning/afternoon. we finally got throuhg about 10 minutes before they were due to close. My mum said that the guy on the phone sounded as if he had just woken up and the service was just terrible. This was when we got suspicious and my parents checked their bank account.

The money had been taken out. TWICE.

This was completely unacceptable and extremely worrying as it felt as if we had been properly scammed.

The next day, I kept trying to phone through again still no reply. The tracking status still said processing and so I phoned up my mum. She said that we should wait and see.

Turns out it had arrived on the Tuesday and mum was just trying to surprise me and believe me, it was a BIG surprise.

I then proceeded to open up the packaging (it came in two boxes) but I had ordered a moon filter as well as the free torch. I finally found the moon filter in the invoice bag? As for the torch...

Well that is still to be accounted for. I phoned them up at lunch today but again, no response. I'm starting to think that they recognise both my number and my mum's.

I definitely WILL NOT be buying anything from that family of companies ever again and would advise the reader to do the same.

Anyway on to the telescope...

It is a BEAST. 8 beautiful inches of lovely parabolic mirror goodness!! It took me about half an hour to build the base and assemble everything else (just attach the finder scope) by myself. I love the build quality and the premium feel this telescope has and cannot recommend it enough to any astro noobs like me as a first scope!

I took a look at Jupiter and fumbled around getting used to the flipped optics, inherent in reflector designs (I have done my research see =D ). But WOW. I had used a pair of 10x50s before and can easily pick out the Galileans but the moons in the eyepiece here were as bright as most stars!! it wasn't just the moons but the intricate cloud structures were easily seen. Bear in mind I had not waited any time for my night vision to kick in and anyway all the indoor lights were on! I was completely blown away...

After a while of fiddling around with the finder scope alignment controls I finally managed to get it sort of aligned but alas, dinner called!

After coming out I saw that a LOT of dew had collected on the finder scope as well as the body of the tube but thankfully not the mirror or the eyepieces. I managed to get about 10-20 minutes of Jupiter watching in before I wanted to hunt for an easy target, M42, The Orion Nebula. Trust me fellow noobs, this is a sight to behold in a pair of 10x50s and I really wanted to see it last night. Thanks to a rather foggy and slightly out of alignment finder scope I failed at what I thought to be an easy task :S. Spent maybe another 10-15 minutes admiring Jupiter but I decided to call it a night.

A word about the eyepieces...

The bundled eyepieces (10mm and 25mm) were of a pretty good optical standard I'd say. I prefer using the 25mm by far as it has longer eye relief and with my unpractised shaky head I managed to keep most of the FOV in view. With practice I'd say that the 10mm will be great in time... If found that the moon filter gave a slightly green hue to things but I have yet to use it on the moon!

All in all a great scope! I am very pleased with the product but please please, don't buy from PO/SnS!

Thanks for reading a pretty darn long post!

Clear Skies!

Callum

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moogoomonkey

moogoomonkey

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Welcome to SGL.

PO/SnS have something of a "reputation". There are those who have used them repeatedly without any problems, but not a few who have had real trouble with them :(

James

Unfortunately I read up about them after I had placed the second order!!

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spudlet

spudlet

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That's quite a story ! I only joined yesterday myself, but what the hell! Welcome! I had fun ordering my first scope. Ordered a 120 refractor, a 100 arrived, that was replaced by a 150 when they realised they'd run out of 120s. IT is amazing some shops stay in business - well in this case I suppose I won out, so I have no complaints. (This wasn't Pulsar.)

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum If you haven't done so already, you might want to download a free planetarium program called "Stellarium" which you read about here. It's very popular among members here and has lots of features to keep you going when the clouds come in, as they sometimes do! :grin: Can be configured to your exact viewing location thereby presenting you with an identical night sky to the one you will be observing. A nice feature is the advance date/time facility which allows you to advance the night sky to any date or time in the future - really helpful when planning your observations or if your view is obstructed and you want to know when Saturn etc will be finally available to view.

Clear skies and congratulations on your new scope.

James

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VigdisVZ

VigdisVZ

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Hi and welcome!

Glad to hear you got your scope and it somewhat sorted now. I had slight problems myself from a local supplier, not anywhere near your level of problems, but still enough to make me worried for a while.

Nice to have you on board!

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rwilkey

rwilkey

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Hi Callum, welcome to SGL, the Moon filter you had 'free' is obviously a cheapie one as you'd expect. If you find you need a Moon filter the best ones are 'neutral density' ones, coded ND96 (0.09) for one that gives 13% transmission , for example, you will find this much better. Can't believe the problems you had with Pulsar et al. How do they stay in business?

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