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Lemon alert - Criterion scope on eBay

moriniboy

By moriniboy
in The Astro Lounge

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philj

philj

Posted
Posted

I'm slowly falling into the "well it can't really be that bad" camp so I will probably buy one at some stage to see.

I wouldnt advise it. I have been tempted by ebay bargains on these scopes but thankfully never succumbed. They look the part and the ads from the era were very impressive but reports from past owners bad experiences plus unfavourable reviews have put me off

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bambuko

bambuko

Posted
Posted

To interfere in what consenting adults do should really be avoided :grin:

After all it is between the seller and the buyer and unless you know either of them ...

Every day people buy stupid things on ebay, or pay over the odds - it's their money!

Unless someone ask for advice here - on the lines "I am thinking of buying ..., what do you think?" (in which case we should give honest advice).

The guy selling it is not doing anything illegal, the guy buying it is paying for his education :evil:

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John

John

Posted
Posted

Rod Mollise knows quite a bit about SCT's. His take on the Criterion Dynamax:

"Criterion Dynamax

I can sum-up the “quality” of the Criterion SCTs simply: I have never, ever seen one that was optically better than “fair.” Why is that? Criterion is a company famous in the annals of amateur astronomy for producing very high quality Newtonian reflectors at reasonable prices. Why couldn’t they do the same with SCTs and provide real competition for Celestron back in the 1970s? The stumbling block was the corrector. The company stumbled in attempts to mass produce correctors without infringing on Celestron’s patents. When the legal smoke cleared, and Criterion found away to do those all-important lenses, they stumbled again. Rather than matching the optics to make sure correctors, primaries, and secondaries worked well together, Criterion just assembled scopes out of whatever came off the assembly line first. That was what killed ‘em, and why these telescopes are nothing more than historical curiosities usually not worthy anybody’s time much less money."

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lukebl

lukebl

Posted
Posted

That's an eyeopener.

When I was a kid in the 70s, I always eagerly awaited my monthly copy of 'Sky and Telescope' by air mail from the US. I always DROOLED over the exotic telescopes for sale, which seemed so much bigger and better than anything we could get here. I was particularly enamoured of the Criterion Dynamax. Probably would have done a better job than my cheap 3" refractor.

Here's a copy of the ad, from one of my own vintage copies of the mag.

22997379474_06f53b2a93_b.jpg

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philj

philj

Posted
Posted

To interfere in what consenting adults do should really be avoided :grin:

After all it is between the seller and the buyer and unless you know either of them ...

Every day people buy stupid things on ebay, or pay over the odds - it's their money!

Unless someone ask for advice here - on the lines "I am thinking of buying ..., what do you think?" (in which case we should give honest advice).

The guy selling it is not doing anything illegal, the guy buying it is paying for his education :evil:

Thats the way we of a pre internet age learned, apart from what was talked about in societies and personal experience, you learnt from your mistakes. However in the age of the forums, facetube etc folks are able to ask opinions of others and advice from the more experienced. Nothing wrong with that and very helpful, after all if it was all go away and dont ask questions SGL would be rather sparse.

Yep Luke, I too used to drool over thise ads, the scopes certainly looked impressive in them to folks brought up on Tasco 2" refractors

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