Coronado in trouble ?

[centroid]

I saw this 'posted' on an Aussie astro forum today.

"I just read on a forum in the USA that the Coronado side of Meade has just gone bust"

Any one back home heard the rumour?

Dave

[Jamie]

I had heard that the Coronado side of things were going to be sold off by Meade and a management style take over was on the cards....

Maybe it failed...

I also heard that one of the original founders of Coronado was heavily involved with the new Lunt solar scopes....

[centroid]

I guess its a case of 'there's no smoke without fire', and like most rumours, all will be revealed in due course.

Dave

[Milamber]

Doesn't look good for the blue one...

http://www.advfn.com/quote_Meade-Instrumen_NASDAQ_MEAD.html

[centroid]

My guess is that it will follow Celestron, and 'head' East.

Dave

[Neon]

That's a shame.

Ultimately I'd love to buy one, although I don't think that the Coronado is very well priced or marketed, and nobody thinks of looking at the sun when they first think of astronomy.

I hope things work themselves out if it is really happening though.

[Solar B]

I always think of the :sunny: first and night-time last but iam the exception to the rule.

I do hope that Coronado sort themselves out as the PST is still and probably always will

be the best Grab/go HA scope even the new 35mm Lunt does,nt have a built in sol-finder.

If Coronado does go under i wonder how that will affect their resale value.

Brian

[Nostromo]

I also heard that one of the original founders of Coronado was heavily involved with the new Lunt solar scopes....

One could say that Coronado was founded (in the USA "company" sense) by the Lunts. I believe that the Lunts then sold Coronado (or at least the rights to the brand, not sure which) to Meade. Meade continued to make Coronado scopes.

I had my doubts that far east manufacturers could cope with the incredibly high tolerances involved in making a good H Alpha scope. But then I said that about triplet APOs with temp compensated, collimatable lens cells, and I also said that about RC's. I've been proven wrong on both counts already, so let's just say it will take a while for them to appear, and for the usual product teething issues to be resolved that way I'll hedge my bets

It would be well cool to get cheap (but good high contrast, safe) 50A H Alpha scopes, that's for sure.

Nick

[beetlejuice]

Although a US company, early Coronado filters were manufactured in the Isle of Man (strange but true). Apparently there are safety issues if the IoM blocking filters are used in conjunction with current US-made Solarmax front elements. Just to keep in mind if anyone is offered an IoM rear filter. Cornoado offer an upgrade service for the IoM blocking filters to make them compatible with current production.

[Merlin66]

I use an original IoM BF15 blocking filter with the Coronado SM60 and I'd be very interested to get more details on the "safety aspects" of this combo??

I found this on the OPT site:

Coronado Instruments would like to caution people that you cannot swap Coronado blocking filters and narrowband front elements ad hoc without the risk of compromising safety. On no account, pair a blocking filter from an Isle of Man production run (AS1 series filter) with a US-produced SolarMax series filter. The blocking elements have been reconfigured in the US produced models and the older, Isle of Man blocking filters are NOT compatible from a blocking perspective with the newer front narrowband elements. Coronado can retrofit additional blocking to older blocking filters to make them compatible with newer narrowband elements. They strongly advise anyone considering pairing a front narrowband element with any blocking filter (other than the one it was originally supplied from the factory) to contact OPT to determine if additional blocking is required. Coronado Instruments and OPT will not be held responsible for problems caused by improper matching of filter elements. [/t][/t]

[Nostromo]

I would be very very careful here. I would recommend calling the guy who designed the whole thing - Ken Huggett at Solarscope Isle of Man. Ken is an expert. He will be able to answer questions on compatibility. Nick