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Has anyone imported a Stellarvue scope?


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Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has purchased a Stellarvue scope direct from the company and had it imported from the US.

I'm interested in their SV70T apo.

As far as I can tell there are no UK stockists so it would have to be a direct purchase.

Would be good to hear if anyone has experience of doing this.

Andy.

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Did you ask this about a week ago?? Someone did.

Stellarvue used to have a stockist/distrubuter but they were a little odd in that they didn't actually stock any of the Stellarvue items. That was many years ago however.

I recently asked Stellarvue about a scope and shipping it to the UK but no answer from them - will say it could easily have been my fault, slight suspecision that I gave them a sort of incomplete email address. If so then it is lost and looking for a home on the WWW somewhere.

I suppose you can buy from them in which case they will ship it here and you will get charged VAT (20%) on the Scope cost + Shipping cost. There may be the odd additional charge so for safety expect to pay around 20%-25% on top.

Could also check if any retailer sells and ships.

When looking into the shipping I have found that FedEx seem the most capable. Intenational shipping is what they do and at least that bit has alwaays gone well with them. It is the HMRC payment side that they seem to have come to terms with. Basically they pay it, they deliver and you pay them - immediate or later. Means it is not sat around supposidely waiting for clearance.

Suppose the alternative question is are there any EU sellers or distributors of Stellarvue equipment.

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3 hours ago, John said:

If you do decide to go ahead, it's worth checking that Stellarvue will provide support for scopes imported to the UK, just in case there are any issues.

There are very similar scopes available this side of the pond:

https://www.altairastro.com/Starwave-70-ED-Triplet-APO-Refractor.html

 

 

Looks like support would be at Stellarvues discretion. This is on their sales policy web page:

"Returns and services for international customers will be at the discretion of Stellarvue."

I had an Altair Lightwave scope a while back. I got an Altair reducer and variable flattener, but got very little correction of the field with either of them. So I'm not so keen to try them again.

Andy.

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3 hours ago, ronin said:

Did you ask this about a week ago?? Someone did.

Stellarvue used to have a stockist/distrubuter but they were a little odd in that they didn't actually stock any of the Stellarvue items. That was many years ago however.

I recently asked Stellarvue about a scope and shipping it to the UK but no answer from them - will say it could easily have been my fault, slight suspecision that I gave them a sort of incomplete email address. If so then it is lost and looking for a home on the WWW somewhere.

I suppose you can buy from them in which case they will ship it here and you will get charged VAT (20%) on the Scope cost + Shipping cost. There may be the odd additional charge so for safety expect to pay around 20%-25% on top.

Could also check if any retailer sells and ships.

When looking into the shipping I have found that FedEx seem the most capable. Intenational shipping is what they do and at least that bit has alwaays gone well with them. It is the HMRC payment side that they seem to have come to terms with. Basically they pay it, they deliver and you pay them - immediate or later. Means it is not sat around supposidely waiting for clearance.

Suppose the alternative question is are there any EU sellers or distributors of Stellarvue equipment.

First time I've posted about Stellarvue. I've dropped them an email to see if there are any dealers in Europe and if not can they ship to the UK. I saw an old post on another forum that mentioned Widescreen, but they just confirmed they don't sell Stellarvue scopes.

Andy.

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Andy, I made a mistake it was Astronomics I contacted about an Astro_Tech scope, not Stellarvue.

Most of the remainder holds true however. I have just realised as elsewhere there is mention of new Astro Tech scopes and I had a look, and there was the one I enquired about, just made by Astro Tech not Stellarvue. :eek:

Still think I gave them the wrong email however. So not going to pass any comment about their lack of response, as I half suspect they have tried and failed, and it is all my fault.

Just as a point you might want to check out the Astronomics+Astro Tech scopes out as they seem to be in the process of bringing a few new model to market. I was looking at their potential new offering of a 72mm ED with FPL-53.

Don't think it was Widescreen as best I recall, it really was a small company, almost the impression was a single person. All I recall was the website was poor and Widescreen have generally had a good website to visit with information and a selection of scopes. The other had very little. But it was quite a few years ago now.

Don't you know anyone going for the eclipse, or better returning from it? Could put one in their bag and bring it back. :D:D:D

 

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On 17/08/2017 at 22:41, ronin said:

Don't you know anyone going for the eclipse, or better returning from it? Could put one in their bag and bring it back. :D:D:D

Unfortunately I didn't know anyone going over for the Eclipse, wish I did :smiley:

Stellarvue have said there are no European dealers, but they can ship to the UK. As you say I'll have to factor in VAT, import duty and courier fees in addition to the scope cost and shipping. So it will be a more expensive option.

I did look at the William Optics Star71 ii scope, but have read some reports of pentagon shaped stars and odd star diffraction patterns.

Andy.

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I gather that the Star 71's in the Mk II form (4 lens not 5) are a better package the the first Mk I offerings with the 5 lens from WO. Also I think that WO hve reduced the illuminated field size, perhaps they were just to optimistic on the first ones and have reigned in the claims.
I suspect that simply getting 5 lens in whatever configuration all optically centered and aligned was too much for everyday use and operation.

Not that I question the choice but why not the ES FCD-100 offerings?, I suppose they do not have a 72mm offering however. As said there is also the Astro-Tech which have a new selection coming out. One "problem" is that the Stellarvue may be out there under another brand name - Primaluce or something, the problem is tracking it down, if it exists. There is a new WO ZS-61 out now (FLO) there is also a new Astro-Tech 60 out that other then the claimed aperture appears identical in specification. And I guess the aperture is really the same, it is odd how many items differ by 1 "unit" but appear otherwise 100% identical.

How about a short break in the US for a long weekend? Not so daft as I have done it for Canada.

 

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On 8/20/2017 at 12:54, ronin said:

I gather that the Star 71's in the Mk II form (4 lens not 5) are a better package the the first Mk I offerings with the 5 lens from WO. Also I think that WO hve reduced the illuminated field size, perhaps they were just to optimistic on the first ones and have reigned in the claims.
I suspect that simply getting 5 lens in whatever configuration all optically centered and aligned was too much for everyday use and operation.

Not that I question the choice but why not the ES FCD-100 offerings?, I suppose they do not have a 72mm offering however. As said there is also the Astro-Tech which have a new selection coming out. One "problem" is that the Stellarvue may be out there under another brand name - Primaluce or something, the problem is tracking it down, if it exists. There is a new WO ZS-61 out now (FLO) there is also a new Astro-Tech 60 out that other then the claimed aperture appears identical in specification. And I guess the aperture is really the same, it is odd how many items differ by 1 "unit" but appear otherwise 100% identical.

How about a short break in the US for a long weekend? Not so daft as I have done it for Canada.

 

Having thought about this some more I'm not comfortable with the returns and services being at the discretion of Stellarvue. So I've decided not to go for an sv70t after all.

I think it may be worth re-considering the Star71 MKII as I can use FLO's check and tune option and their support has always been excellent.

Andy.

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Look up Stargazer Tim's posts/images he has posted recently. He has one of the Star 71 Mk2's seems happy with it - sometimes too damn happy :icon_biggrin::icon_biggrin: Equally the results are good.

Your 1600 diagonal is 27.6 and I gather the Star 71's are good for a 30mm circle, actually have heard slightly bigger then 30mm but WO may be erring slightly on the side of safety. So the scope and camera are kind of well matched.

 

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On ‎17‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 23:41, ronin said:

Andy, I made a mistake it was Astronomics I contacted about an Astro_Tech scope, not Stellarvue.

Most of the remainder holds true however. I have just realised as elsewhere there is mention of new Astro Tech scopes and I had a look, and there was the one I enquired about, just made by Astro Tech not Stellarvue. :eek:

Still think I gave them the wrong email however.

Astronomics does not sell outside the USA; I also wanted Astro Tech apos years ago, but then I realized Teleskop Service sells clones of the same scopes, sometimes with better glass (FPL-53 instead of FPL-51). Altair does the same, and if you like 70mm apos, TS sells a triplet, and Lacerta from Teleskop Austria sells a very nice FPL-53 doublet that should be trouble-free as far as collimation is concerned.

Edit: the Lacerta is a 72mm doublet.

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