Ikharus 102mm ED Unboxing

[mobi]

LongJohn the focal reducer in the box I had was also out of it,s small white box & loose.

So like you said customs may have been putting their fingers over all of these scopes?Which may be where the dust got in, after being opened in a dusty warehouse like a customs place?!

I can just imagaine some customs goon putting their hands down inside these scopes and feeling about.

Glad to hear your is all ok and well & reached you intact & working "longjohn54", I looked at your photos which is a really good idea taking photos to record the unpacking process.

[quattrorings]

I am getting mine tomorrow from Ian - so fingers crossed it arrives in one piece.

I would not worry too much about dust on the elements. I have a collection of expensive Canon "L" series lenses - and about 50% of them have dust on the elements.

I must admit I can see no imperfections in the final pictures.

if the dust is on the outside surface of the second element - it is probably easy to sort - It is a pity you can't have some implement that can induce a static charge to lift the dust off. If the dust is between the first and second element - it will be more problematic.

As I say I would not worry.

At the end of the day I hope it is sorted for you - remember it is a cracking scope for the money.

[LongJohn54]

Glad to hear your is all ok and well & reached you intact & working "longjohn54", I looked at your photos which is a really good idea taking photos to record the unpacking process.

It's worthwhile doing as although the outside looks fine you never really know what might be lurking inside. I'm really pleased with mine and I'm sure you will be once the focuser has been sorted.

[mobi]

Quattrorings, quote "At the end of the day I hope it is sorted for you - remember it is a cracking scope for the money."

For £575 I,d expect the lense to have maybe afew dust specs but not speckled all over it, I bet the Skywatcher 80mm ED scope doesn,t have dust specs on the lense, the dust or what ever it was, was on the inside lense inside of the tube.

I,ve never heard of a Canon L lense with dust inside, from reading posts on here and other photography forums people who can afford to pay thousands of pounds for canon L series lenses wouldn,t accept a single dust spot.

If something you buy is broken and has dust that totally messes up what you wanted to use it for ie astro photos then no matter how cracking it is for the price it,s not acceptable.

The focal reducer in mine was loose out of the box and Longjohns54 commented that his focul redeucer was also loose , that to me means high chance these scopes weren,t checked before sending out.

The courior delivering mine just put the cherry on the top by making sure it woudn,t work.

Luckly everyone else had a better courior delivering their scopes today.

Even if it the scope I had arrived with just the dust inside I belive no one else who had their's delivered today would accept the amount of dust that was in mine inside their scope.

[Takahashi]

I must say, at over half-a-grand, I'm kinda surprised these scopes didn't come in a flight-case of some sort... In a cardboard box with minimal padding seems, well...

[mobi]

Takahasi, I would have happily have paid an extra £30 for a flight case type case for the Ikharus to be placed inside for extra protection extra.

It,s a good option to offer to buyers.

[jnc71106]

I have to agree with that. For the money that has been spent on the scope it's packing leaves a lot to be desired. I was very interested in getting one of these and have followed this thread with some interest for a while now but just recently there have been a few negatives for me i.e slow delivery, the time it took to get replacement parts and now poor packaging of the scope to the point that someone is returning there scope because of damage makes me a bit cautious

Jake

[andrew63]

It is so disappointing when things like this happen. I remember similar problems a few months back which someone had with a 80 triplet from telescope services.

What surprises me is that your telescope and I presume all the ones sent in the batch were not given a once over by Ian King Imaging to make sure all was well before sending out to the customer.

Now I'm not suggesting a star test but a least a quick look to see if all in order, and with this much dust on the elements the supplier should have returned it back as unacceptable. From your point of view with no replacement at hand what do you do? Wait several weeks or more for another boat to arrive?

I hope things will be sorted out quickly for you.

For what it's worth I have the orion version of these 102EDs and they are lovely instruments - very sharp and a match for my C100ED.

andrew

[mobi]

Just to keep you updated.

I am returning the Ikharus for a refund.

I was going to just get a replacement focuser unit put on but I feel I can,t trust this anymore, it could just go from bad to even worse.

After seeing other buyers who also had their scopes delivered on Tuesday did not have the amount of dust inside their new Ikharus scopes that was on the inside lense of the one I received,plus the damage to the focuser on the scope I received,which could have happened anytime from leaving the factory in china I feel I shouldn,t have to accept a scope in this condition,also I can have collimation trouble and/or focusing trouble further on down the road.

I,m really gutted to tell you the truth, saved for months to buy very first refractor, and at £575 this was the only decent model I could afford.

Anyway that it for me.

Good luck to everyone.

[jnc71106]

Sorry to here your getting a refund but I think given what's happened it was the only option for you. It's a real shame when you save up for such a long time only to get let down

Hopefully you will find a scope soon

Jake

[quattrorings]

Quattrorings, quote "At the end of the day I hope it is sorted for you - remember it is a cracking scope for the money."

For £575 I,d expect the lense to have maybe afew dust specs but not speckled all over it, I bet the Skywatcher 80mm ED scope doesn,t have dust specs on the lense, the dust or what ever it was, was on the inside lense inside of the tube.

I,ve never heard of a Canon L lense with dust inside, from reading posts on here and other photography forums people who can afford to pay thousands of pounds for canon L series lenses wouldn,t accept a single dust spot.

If something you buy is broken and has dust that totally messes up what you wanted to use it for ie astro photos then no matter how cracking it is for the price it,s not acceptable.

The focal reducer in mine was loose out of the box and Longjohns54 commented that his focul redeucer was also loose , that to me means high chance these scopes weren,t checked before sending out.

The courior delivering mine just put the cherry on the top by making sure it woudn,t work.

Luckly everyone else had a better courior delivering their scopes today.

Even if it the scope I had arrived with just the dust inside I belive no one else who had their's delivered today would accept the amount of dust that was in mine inside their scope.

Believe you me there are thousands of people with L lenses with dust inside them - only around 70% of them have environmental seals on them. having had these lenses for 20 years I am in a pretty good position to judge.

I personally would have got a replacement rather than a refund as the same scope but with different branding on them are retailing for £900 without the flattener.

[andrew63]

Yes a little dust will be on most peoples optics, whatever they are and generally will not impair the image in any way. But that amount is unacceptable.

The Ikharus is indeed exceptional value for a good quality telescope - far exceeds synta types on quality. Here is mine in it's orion clothing.

[mobi]

Believe you me there are thousands of people with L lenses with dust inside them - only around 70% of them have environmental seals on them. having had these lenses for 20 years I am in a pretty good position to judge.

I personally would have got a replacement rather than a refund as the same scope but with different branding on them are retailing for £900 without the flattener.

**No replacements were available.**

************************************

As this wasn,t the original theme of Rich's original thread and there's a chance of going off topic I,m going to leave things as they are..

Nice Orion scope pics Andrew.

[TFC]

Sorry to hear about your troubles mobi - must be disturbing.

Mine was delivered this afternoon and the first thing I checked was the lens - just a couple of motes is all I can see - whew!

Packing looked OK too.

Anybody care to fill me-in on the focuser adjustments? There is a lock screw right forward on the main barrel that allows rotation of the complete focuser - check! But what about the narrow coarse knurled ring? when I loosen its lock screw, that will also rotate completely, but is very loose. The narrow fine knurled ring unscews completely. The other bits are obvious.

Now to give it a work-out

[ribuck]

Hey Mobi,

that's a real shame you've had a rough ride. I'm really surprised that Ian isn't checking the scopes before they get shipped.

Not a good start for Ikharus as they are going to get a bad reputation, from trivial things like poor packaging.

What scope are you looking as as an alternative, skywatcher 100ed pro ?

[mobi]

Hi Rich, yes your right the packing does need a serious upgrade.

Ian King did put an extra thick cardboard box around the manufactuers box but even then the courior really threw it around.If the outer box hadn,t been there the courior would have totally destroyed it.(Not an over-estimation).

I would just like to make it very clear I donot blame Ian King Imaging for anything they are at the mercy of the courior.I need to buy a mount & some other small parts sometime soon and will probably buy from Ian King.

What amazed me was the manufactuer didn,t even wrap the tube in bubble wrap, just a plastic bag and loose foam cut inserts.

I guess I got unlucky.

I,m really happy to see the others on here who had theirs delivered were all intact and safe.

Rich, I have been lucky enough to buy a (Used) Skywatcher ED80 the black tube/cream focuser type, I bought it as used from someone on Astronomy Buy Sell UK website.

I,m sure alot of others saw the same advert on there.It had a skywatcher gold finder.

I,ll post a pic for you when I get a chance next week.

How is everything with your focuser now? Is it all ok and working smoothly for you?

Have you had a chance to get all backup and imaging?

Good luck with it!!

[andrew63]

Hi Mobi

Really pleased for you that you have another telescope, as you know the 80ED are highly regarded on this site so I'm sure you will be pleased with it. Also I see you have 50 post so you can now access the used stuff here - which is usually kept in very good order, so you may see some more stuff that you need.

andrew

[ribuck]

Hey Mobi,

Your skywatcher will be great and i'm sure it will give lots of great views.

Regarding the shipping and couriers playing football with the boxes, all ian can do is complain, so it's not his fault in any way. But with the dust issue where the optics were absolutely covered then I think that's something that Ian needs to address with the manufacturer.

As for my scope, the focuser is back on and i got some clear sky last night so spent some time recalibrating the focuser with my lakeside motorized focuser unit and then recalibrating FocusMax.

Unfortunately I didn't get much further as i went to do some imaging only to find that there was a nasty water mark on my ccd chip where water had condensed and dried, so had to strip down my qhy9 to clean it off.

now i just have to wait for another clear night, which at the moment seem to be rarer than moon rock :-(

Rich.

[continuum]

Received my Ikharos 102 today and am pleased to report it was received in excellent condition. It was extremely well packed and secured.

The scope itself is pristine - as you would expect - with no dust on the lens.

So I think those reporting problems must have been very unlucky.

Now all I need is some clear skies to give it first light.

RonJ

[ribuck]

Ron,

Glad your scope arrived in good condition. You will have some great views. What do you think of the Focuser.........are you as pleased with it as i was ?

Rich

[continuum]

Rich

After your advice to me some time ago I decded that the Ikharos was the best value in 100mm refractors. As you know there has been quite a wait for them but first inspection confirms what a cracker this scope is. The focuser is certainly robust to say the least although I havnt yet had the opportunity to try it with my DSLR.

Unfortunately the weather down here in Devon has been very poor in recent months and current forecasts look no better, so first light will have to wait.

The images taken with the Ikharos that I've seen are very encouraging and I hope to get back imaging soon.

RonJ

[ribuck]

Hi Ron,

Looking forward to seeing some images soon.

I'm not having much luck as i don't seem to have clear sky long enough to do any LRGB Imaging with my mono camera so thinking about switching to a Colour ccd before long.

Rich.

[continuum]

Hi Rich

I haven't even had it outside yet. The days are not too bad but as soon as evening comes it goes cloudy!

Iwas using a DSI2 color but recently aquired a DSI2Pro mono but for the brief time I used it I found it quite difficult with the sliding filter holder it has. So I also am thinking about going back to OSC. More suitable to our weather perhaps.

Ron

[ribuck]

Yeah had the same train of thought, but on the flip side i'm torn as i would love to do narrowband at some point in the future.

[mindburner]

this looks stunning for the money and a good intro scope for imaging for me