What was your worst astronomy purchase?

[Louis D]

My collapsible observing stool that collapsed into a heap after one or two observing sessions as detailed below:

I think it stayed together for most of one observing session.

[RT65CB-SWL]

This WiFi camera…

For unknown reasons, I could not get the damn thing to communicate with an Android phone or tablet.

[rl]

Explore Scientific 25mm 100 degree eyepiece.

I imported one of the early ones from the USA before they were available in the UK with high hopes of the ultimate in low power wide-field views. I knew inside 5 mins if using it I'd bought a lemon. Gross distortions, prismatic CA verging on a built-in spectroscope.....lack of precise focus anywhere in the field..a total disaster for a premium eyepiece.

Very sensitive to your individual eye prescription, it showed behaviour I've never seen in any other eyepiece. Changed it for a second example which was exactly the same so concluded it was designed that way. I sold it on for a fraction of the purchase price after giving the buyer every chance to assess it for himself...

If my memory serves correctly, it had 8 elements. I think ES are now quoting 10 for the same eyepiece....but I might be wrong.

[John]

6 hours ago, rl said:

Explore Scientific 25mm 100 degree eyepiece.

I imported one of the early ones from the USA before they were available in the UK with high hopes of the ultimate in low power wide-field views. I knew inside 5 mins if using it I'd bought a lemon. Gross distortions, prismatic CA verging on a built-in spectroscope.....lack of precise focus anywhere in the field..a total disaster for a premium eyepiece.

Very sensitive to your individual eye prescription, it showed behaviour I've never seen in any other eyepiece. Changed it for a second example which was exactly the same so concluded it was designed that way. I sold it on for a fraction of the purchase price after giving the buyer every chance to assess it for himself...

If my memory serves correctly, it had 8 elements. I think ES are now quoting 10 for the same eyepiece....but I might be wrong.

I can understand why Tele Vue stopped at 21mm for their 100's.

 

[Avocette]

On 21/09/2023 at 12:31, lawsio said:

My worst purchase is probably going to happen soon if I switch my 8" dob for 10". I know deep down I shouldn't, the weight and bulk will be prohibitive, I'll never use it, etc. But I'm sill bloody gonna.

Still bloody gonna.

At the beginning of my second age of astronomy (my first age was described in the post below), I first bought a second-hand SW 200p Dob and then immediately suffered aperture fever and longed for a 250p. I found one for sale, ironically @lawsio in Northwich, at an attractive price and bought it. Back home my (usually encouraging) wife said “why on Earth have you bought a second cannon?” I explained it was to gather 56% more photons from distant astronomical objects (according to the then prevalent SW advertising). After thoroughly cleaning and collimating the scopes, I tested them side by side during ten observing sessions, with and without a 200mm aperture mask. and decided that I preferred the 200p, and sold on the 250p. In hindsight there were many possible reasons that the 200p seemed as good if not better, most probably the figure of that particular mirror, or maybe the f4.7 versus f6.0 aperture ratio in association with my non-too-special eyepieces.

)

[SkyPhil]

I've just checked the seven day weather forecast. Right now it feels I've wasted thousands on equipment that just sits in the shed waiting and hoping.

🥱

[jjohnson3803]

On 16/10/2023 at 20:41, RT65CB-SWL said:

This WiFi camera…

For unknown reasons, I could not get the damn thing to communicate with an Android phone or tablet.

Heh.  I was looking at one of those somewhere online and thinking that would be just the thing - I don't want to drag out a laptop, deal with cords, buy an ASIAir, etc.  I suspected it might be too good to be true.

[Ags]

Worst purchase? I think it might be the big dob I am saving for!

[Concordia000]

When I was a teenager and just discovered the hobby, I begged my (rather supportive) parents to buy me a C5 on top of a CG-4 (EQ-3-2) mount. Now, the mount was excellent as I didn’t do any imaging back then, but it was heavy and cannot be moved without help — and we lived in a flat. Needless to say the scope lived on the balcony and didn’t see much use aside from seeing Jupiter and the moon.

That particular C5 wasn’t that good either. It was soft and the mirror wobbled when I focused. I got a short tube 80 for free later and I actually preferred that scope for how sharp it was in comparison.

I also bought a star tracker with the money I earned back then, but it was so heavy that I actually NEVER used it.

In more recent memory, I regretted ONE purchase that had been mentioned earlier here. Yes, it’s the NP-101 — while it’s an excellent visual scope and gave me the best Pleiades view I’ve seen so far, I am primarily an imager these days and it was not a stellar performer with modern, small pixel cameras. More importantly, I had to sell my Borg 90FL for it, which is a sale I deeply regretted — even now, after owning the absolutely stellar FSQ-85, I still want to buy the 90FL back!

[John]

I've remembered another mistake. This:

I picked it up cheap from a photo dealer. I had read some criticisms of them but thought that I might be able to tweak it into being a useful portable scope. Whatever I tried I could not get sharp images through it, even at quite low magnification. It's a sort of bird-jones design I now know and not even a half decent one of those. It's made in Japan so not everything from the land of the rising sun is well designed and made 🙄

My 1960's 60mm Tasco refractor gave much sharper views of everything. I still have that Tasco. The 76mm catadioptric ended up in bits in the bin I'm afraid.

 

[Cjg]

On 18/09/2023 at 20:55, Stu said:

Mine was a Tak Sky 90 which I sold a lovely FC-76DC for. I was trying to find the biggest aperture for grab and go/carry on purposes and for widefield views. In reality I found it much too bulky and whilst it was decent on planets, the edge performance and field curvature for widefield just wasn’t what I was hoping for. Sold for a big loss, and a number of years later I found a replacement 76 which if I have any sense I’ll hang on to…. 🤪. My Genesis gives me my lovely flat widefield views, though not for carry on.

Very nearly bought a Sky 90 - on paper they looked a perfect grab n' go scope....Loved my 76, it only went (to an observing buddy) when the Stowaway arrived.

[Stu]

3 hours ago, Cjg said:

Very nearly bought a Sky 90 - on paper they looked a perfect grab n' go scope....Loved my 76, it only went (to an observing buddy) when the Stowaway arrived.

Now a Stowaway I would be quite happy to swap places for the 76! 👍👍

[900SL]

Wega rings and autofocus rig for Samyang 135mm. Without a doubt the biggest pile of junk I've bought for astro, beating a Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i by a length

Review here. 

 

Utter rubbish unfit for purpose. I think @ollypenrice had a similar experience

[ollypenrice]

25 minutes ago, 900SL said:

Wega rings and autofocus rig for Samyang 135mm. Without a doubt the biggest pile of junk I've bought for astro, beating a Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i by a length

Review here. 

 

Utter rubbish unfit for purpose. I think @ollypenrice had a similar experience

Certainly did. The most feckless piece of junk ever brought to market. Almost every component has now broken on the one I bought, as the people responsible for it must have known they would., and it has long since gone to the bin, like the considerable sum I laid out to buy it.

Olly

[Bugdozer]

I think I have been quite lucky compared to some of you, in that I have never bought any gear that has been intrinsically crap. However, there was something weird with my second telescope. 

This was a Meade ETX 90, which was actually pretty good for what it was. It worked nicely at first, (although I was mildly annoyed that 3 months after buying it they brought out the ETX 90+C with full goto capability.)

But it suffered a strange fault after a while. There's a kind of collimator ring surrounding the secondary mirror, stuck on the back of the corrector plate. Over time, this started to slide downwards very gradually, leaving a trail of adhesive like a slug. Of course after a while this was enough over the mirror that it started to affect the visibility of dimmer objects. 

I took it to Telescope House (they still had the physical location in Kent at the time, although I had bought it from them when they were still in London) to see if there was any possibility of repair. The guy looked at it and admitted he had never seen this happen before, and that any possibility of repairing it was practically nil - the gunk had probably ruined the secondary mirror. 

So tragically, I had no choice but to upgrade to a bigger and better scope. Which I guess worked out all right in the end. 

[MartianHill]

My worst purchase was a Celestron C9.25, it was supposed to be the SCT to have but it had terrible optical performance 😕

[tooth_dr]

My worst purchase was the high speed narrowband filters from Baader - they simply didn’t work as described - haloes, and the oiii was completely off band.  The aftersales from Baader from very poor and as a result I will never purchase Baader again.

Thankfully FLO refunded me.

 

 

 

[tooth_dr]

On 21/10/2023 at 22:28, John said:

I've remembered another mistake. This:

 

At first glance I thought Takahashi had brought out a mini Epsilon 🤣  

[John]

44 minutes ago, Bugdozer said:

.....But it suffered a strange fault after a while. There's a kind of collimator ring surrounding the secondary mirror, stuck on the back of the corrector plate. Over time, this started to slide downwards very gradually, leaving a trail of adhesive like a slug. Of course after a while this was enough over the mirror that it started to affect the visibility of dimmer objects. 

I took it to Telescope House (they still had the physical location in Kent at the time, although I had bought it from them when they were still in London) to see if there was any possibility of repair. The guy looked at it and admitted he had never seen this happen before, and that any possibility of repairing it was practically nil - the gunk had probably ruined the secondary mirror. 

So tragically, I had no choice but to upgrade to a bigger and better scope. Which I guess worked out all right in the end. 

This can happen with older examples I believe:

Meade ETX 90RA | Secondary Baffle Problem - YouTube

And here:

Slipped secondary baffle in ETX90EC - ATM, Optics and DIY Forum - Cloudy Nights

I'll bet Telescope House had come across it before. They have been selling Meade scopes for years.

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by John

[John]

2 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

At first glance I thought Takahashi had brought out a mini Epsilon 🤣  

Very, very far from it !!! 😁

Konus used to use a similar colour for their scopes as well, just to confuse things further 🙄

[Bugdozer]

52 minutes ago, John said:

This can happen with older examples I believe:

Meade ETX 90RA | Secondary Baffle Problem - YouTube

And here:

Slipped secondary baffle in ETX90EC - ATM, Optics and DIY Forum - Cloudy Nights

I'll bet Telescope House had come across it before. They have been selling Meade scopes for years.

 

Great, So it does seem to be fixable, and the guy at Telescope House wasn't honest with me 😒. That annoys me quite a bit. 

[fwm891]

For me an AA 26C just couldn’t get colour to look right or debayer cleanly.

[dweller25]

This may come as a surprise but a brand new Vixen VMC200L was my worst purchase, no planetary detail could be seen at all and a Celestron 100ED easily out performed it - I quickly returned it.

[The Lapwing]

Worst (along the usual legendary customer service) was 6 inch OO VX which arrived with white grease by the look of it on the primary. Took months to get my money back and even then not all of it. 

[Captain Scarlet]

55 minutes ago, The Lapwing said:

Worst (along the usual legendary customer service) was 6 inch OO VX which arrived with white grease by the look of it on the primary. Took months to get my money back and even then not all of it. 

I wouldn’t be surprised it wasn’t white grease but worse - silicone. I acquired a used VX8 with multiple cubic centimetres of silicone gluing the mirror to the cell, and all the moving parts of the cell, completely destroying the whole point of the cell.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Captain Scarlet