Dark Frame Optics

[AndreaT]

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure this is the right forum to post this but I can't see where else to post it so here it goes (quite long but given the awful weather)...

I used to do a lot of astro-imaging  in the past, years ago. As such I had a number of mounts collected in 20 years of activity. Be it because of intense use, be it because they used to sit outside in all (foul and otherwise)  over the years the started to show sign of aging and some started to act up more times than not. As I retired from the astro-turf, so to speak, for the past few years (let's say 😎 I left the stacked away in the shed. Last year I decided to pick up astronomy once again, just to feel if I still got the bug. One the mount that I tended to use most often for small instrument and for forays to dark locations was my trusty Vixen GP-DX.  Over nearly 20 years of service it became increasingly difficult to operate (for a number of reasons too boring to enumerate here). Bottom line is that either I got myself a new portable mount capable of proper guiding and good enough for imaging at 1.5"/px with a lightweight imaging kit or I tried to resurrect the trusty GP-DX.

Not trusting myself enough with the DIY required I enquired (googled) if anyone would service the mount and stumbled upon the DarkFrame website that offered what seemed to what I was looking for; on the 14th of August 2019 I sent an email to the owner enquiring if they offered that king of service for my Vixen and asking for a quote. After a little while I got a replay In the positive and a quote suitably followed. I find the price a bit steep (£350 plus shipping) but hey, either that of at least 3x times for another mount of similar capabilities. Besides, I really liked the GP-DX. I decided to go for it and duly paid the £195 deposit (on the 29th of August) and waited for the shipping box to arrive. Few days later it did appear at the door. To say I was unimpressed by the box would be an understatement as I was expecting a proper heavy-duty  shipping BOX  rather than some sort of recycled crisp cardboard box with a lot of odds and ends as fillers to be used as packaging material. Yet I had the proper return label and the mount plus controller were light enough anyway. Bit disappointed but the money was already gone so I might as well bite the bullet and risk leaving it to the tender mercies of the courier. Nagging doubts notwithstanding, the 4th of September I was advised by the customer manager that the mount arrived at destination on good order.

I was lead to believe, by the conversations with the DarkFrame owner, that the lead time was in the order of 4 weeks, so I was properly impressed when one month later I was advised by the customer manager that the mount was in the final testing phase after being repaired and to pay up the outstanding dues, which I duly did (via Paypal) the day after. I was also expecting to receive the results of the stripping, repairing and fixing but that didn't happen. Enquiring about it with them I was told that the mount was running over the weekend as per the following quote from them:

"We photograph every stage of a mount rebuild (especially on older mounts), so as promised will be sending some before and after shots. I’m letting her run in over the weekend, then will take an RA track test on our rig. I’ve also started on the Starbook so that should be much better too."

So I was in my right to expect to receive something for all the money I paid, but, alas nothing was forthcoming. Nearly 3 weeks after being told that my mount was "about" to be shipped I email them to ask about my mount status re shipment and such and received exactly no answer. After few other days I called them directly and the customer manager (or whatever) told me that someone or other was on holiday (nearly 1 month after they said the mount was ready to be shipped! ) but the mount was to go out at the end of that same week or next Monday at latest (that would have been Monday the 28th of October).

The 4th of November I send another email asking what the heck was going on. No replay. No answer to my calls either. I got better things to do in my life than chasing after some xxxxxxxx.  As the Paypal buyers' protection was due to elapse the 25th of November I decided to pull the plug on them and initiated a claim procedure (on the 20th) that was duly ruled in my favour. By the 25th of November, as they were forced by Paypal to refund, non unexpectedly they chose to contact me by email offer a reduction of costs (waiving the shipping back cost) as long as I paid the monies!

As I had not trust left I counter-offered to pay it all upon receipt of confirmed shipment. Nothing was ever heard of them nor of my mount to this date, 4 months after the facts. I could write it off as lost cause or simply as a lost mount and consider myself lucky I didn't send my way more expensive mount to them to be "retuned". They are too far away from me to drive to their place, assuming that it still exists and besides, with current lock-down not something I can do anyway. In all my dealings (going back 20 years+) with dealers in the "astro" business I was never let down so badly so much.

As they say: buyers beware!

Andrea Tasselli

[Jerry Barnes]

Last summer I had been thinking about mount performance and wondered if a Dark Frame tune would be a good investment.  I saw on their website that you needed to book a two week slot for the work.  That was encouraging as it implied that they had done something about the complaints of extended delays in returning mounts after working on them.

I enquired about availability in the summer when being without a mount would not be an issue.  I received a call from Dark Frame in a couple of days and was told a slot had just come free and if I got the mount to them early the next week they would start work on it.  I was also told I could probably expect sub second guiding after the work was done.

The sales pitch was convincing and I paid in advance as required and despatched the mount in packaging supplied by Dark Frame.

Over the next 10 weeks I requested an update on progress several times and if I got a reply it was generally the work would be completed soon.  After taking legal advice I wrote saying I expected work to be completed and the mount despatched within 7 days or I would be seeking a cost reduction.

I got an apology almost immediately and the mount was despatched the next day.

It was a week or two before I had the opportunity to try the mount and see how it performed.  I achieved between 2” and 4” RMS generally.

 I emailed Dark Frame attaching the guide logs and got a very prompt and helpful reply.  Essentially the guiding corrections were too aggressive and over correcting given the improved performance following a tune.

I reset and redid the PHD2 calibration after setting the corrections for guide pulse width in EQMOD at or below recommended values.

After that I could get guiding error to 1.2” at best but nearer 2” or more usually.  I was still seeing random spikes, especially in Dec, where there would be a large error, 10s or arc seconds, taking some time to correct.  I had noticed that it improved after a meridian flip and eventually realised that the balance was poor and by happy accident was running east heavy.  My balance was out because the RA axis was quite stiff and the counter weight needed moving two or three inches to make a difference in the balance.

Essentially the mount performance had improved but not as much as I had hoped.  Dark Frame give a two year guarantee on their work so I could have continued trying to improve the performance but I decided that it wasn’t worth pursuing and I’d cut my losses and replace the mount.