Had To Laugh

[BazMark]

Arrived home from work this morning to a bemused wife and a parcel from Amazon almost big enough to hold a DVD player but as light as a feather.

"What have you ordered now" She says.

"Dunno" my reply.

We undo the packaging and start taking out the protective paper. There was masses of it. I'm just beginning to wonder if there's anything in the box, then guess what? In the very bottom of the box my Planisphere.

Yes Amazon have them back in stock. £5.99 delivered.

Had to laugh at the box! But it did do it's job. It didn't end up in a mess after being stuffed through the letter box

[shepsboss]

Same experience, perhaps they just ran out of small boxes. The postage alone must have taken most of the £5.99. Amazon going bust? They will if they keep this up.

[eriwig]

Same thing happened to me, couldn't believe it when we found it at the bottom of the box! lol

[AstroJen]

Hi all, Jen here,

That's seems like an extreme amount of packaging...maybe they were trying to emphasise the fact the product is so small!!

I am a bit of an amatuar and am currently in the market for a scope, so I'm am asking everyone's advice, cause I don't want to get misold a product. This is probably going to sound really silly, but what's a Planisphere??

[astromerlin]

It just shows how wasteful these big companys are. I regularly buy components from RS and each component is in a plastic bag and a few of them are placed in a paper bag which are placed in a box which could be 10 times the size really needed.

The worst i have had was the delivery of a motor (the size of a car starter motor) I bought off Ebay. It arrived in a large plastic beer cooler along with a note saying due to their recycling commitment they have used the cooler as packaging, the electronics have been removed for your safety. We hope you will find the cooler useful.

How, I wondered am I going to find a non working cooler useful?

[umadog]

You can write to Amazon and comment about the packaging (they encourage it). Actually, they've generally be doing well as regards packaging. Obviously this is one of the exceptions.

[MarySkater]

what's a Planisphere??

A plastic disk, often 12 inches /30 cm in diameter, with a whole-sky map (Northern Hemisphere, usually). Attached on top is another plastic disk which hides most of it, but has a clear window. You turn the top disk to set a required date and time, and the clear window reveals the stars which will be visible above the horizon at that time.

Note (1) They are valid for a particular band of latitudes, so make sure you use one that's right for your location.

Note (2) They don't show planets. They can do stars which keep coming back to the same view each year, but the planets wander.

Mary

[BazMark]

Here you go. A Planisphere. Pic No.1

Here it is set to 9pm February 11th. Pic No. 2

Then look to a compass point, in this case South and hold the planisphere in front of you with that compass point at the bottom then the sky map on it is what is in the sky over our head and to the south. Pic No. 3