Meade 16" on the 'bay

[itchy]

Was having a general shufty at telescope stuff and wandered across this:-

MEADE 16" STARFINDER DOBSONIAN TELESCOPE on eBay (end time 17-Nov-10 11:53:07 GMT)

I've no intention of purchasing it - my interest was taken by the fact that the mirror has been physically removed from the OTA after every use.... I'm assuming this will cause more problems than it cures due to collimation issues etc....

[WayBig]

...seems like an odd thing to do - and you are right it did cause problems - they scratched the mirror doing it.

8 mins left no bids..interesting to see if it sells

[CGolder]

Shame the tubes are made from Cardboard like materials

[John]

I've been following that one as well. Looking at the scratch I was wondering if having the mirror re-coated would deal with it ?. Depends how deep it is I guess.

I reckon you would buy it for the optics and re-house them in a truss tube, decent mirror cells, etc. The mirrors on those were reputed to be reasonably good I believe.

The lowest quality Orion Optics mirror set at 16" is £1,700 ......

[HappySachs]

Would a scratch like that have a noticable affect on performance? They don't seem to think so, unsurprisingly.

[John]

Somebody took the plunge then

[HappySachs]

heh, someone bid with 15 seconds to go

[John]

Would a scratch like that have a noticable affect on performance? They don't seem to think so, unsurprisingly.

No, I don't think it would. Think how big the central obstruction is on a scope like that - the scratch would be unnoticable in performance terms. If it were mine I'd still prefer it not to be there of course

[HappySachs]

...Think how big the central obstruction is on a scope like that - the scratch would be unnoticable in performance terms..

oh yes, didn't think of that, seems kinda obvious now

cheers

[JohnC]

Good purchase i think.

Make a nice project to use the optics in an obsession style scope.

Wonder who bagged it?

[glowjet]

Probably Harry Potter with a mark like that.

[John]

Probably Harry Potter with a mark like that.

"Harry Potter and the slightly marked primary"

The next in the series for sure

[CGolder]

Harry Potter and The Bit Cracked Starfinder?

[Moonshane]

I was thinking about this myself but was put off by the general comments made and the scratch of course. I'd have created a truss dob - agree with Warthog. it's a great deal.

Just cannot quite afford it yet - too many other things to do first!