s e a n w i L L s o n

the portaball arrival

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Astronomy, Telescope 2 Comments

well, amy and i drove up to new berlin wisconsin today to pick up the portaball. unfortunately the weather gods are not on my side so all i was able to do today was put it together, wax it, and take a bunch of pictures. below are the pictures as well as brief descriptions of each. lets hope that i get to take it out some time this week, i’m not sure i can take any more pictures.

1. the completed package — the whole package of everything that i ordered. the sphere, stand, cover, poles, manual, free shirts, and polish.
2. portaball manual — the cover of the portaball manual.
3. mirror specification — the specifications of the mirror surface from carl zambuto. that’s a damn nice mirror.
4. mirror data results — the final numbers on the mirror specification sheet that really matter.
5. all packed up — the 12.5″ sphere all packed up with the uta, 2 new eye pieces, cloth, charger, laser, light shroud, light baffle, primary, secondary, 2 batteries, and the curved spider.
6. all unpacked — everything taken out of the sphere and placed on the floor.
7. uta up close — a close up of the upper tube assembly (uta) which has the feather light focuser that i ordered. i can’t wait to try it out.
8. inside the sphere — the inside of the sphere with the uta removed. that is the cover that is placed over your mirror when not in use. it has 3 feet that make it rest above the mirror without touching it. those feet are also padded on the top which is what the uta sits on.
9. control ring up close — an up close look at a portion of the control ring around the sphere.
10. control ring up close — an up close look at a portion of the control ring around the sphere.
11. tube container — this is the container that houses the truss tubes for the portaball. it holds all 6 truss tubes and has room for another i think.
12. assembly part 1 — the first stage of assembly which includes attaching the 6 truss tubes and plugging in one end of the electrical.
13. assembly part 2 — the next stage of assembly involves attaching the upper tube assembly (uta) to two of the truss tubes and attaching with the bolt. each bolt has an attached wire so you can’t drop it onto your primary.
14. assembly part 3 — continuing around the rest of the truss tubes are attached to the uta. you should have 3 sets of 2 tubes attached at this point.
15. assembly part 4 — the light shroud slid on and the wind shield attached to the uta.
16. assembly part 5 — get your wife (amy seen here) to marvel at the beauty and simplicity of the design.
17. complete assembly — the completely assembled portaball in our family room. it is a bit taller than we thought but it is truly amazing.
18. portaball love — it was love at first sight when i hugged my new toy.
19. look down at the primary cover — a view from the top of the uta down at where the primary sits. this is a the completely assembled scope with the covers still attached to the primary and secondary.
20. uta up close — another shot of the uta up close and personal with the feather light focuser i bought. i have the rigel quik finder attached in this picture. also notice the light shroud strings and zipper for easy access to the optical assembly.
21. sphere on base — an up close shot of the sphere on the base. notice the vent holes drilled into the sphere to increase ventilation. there are some pencil marks on the sphere that came off when we were polishing / waxing it.
22. sphere and wax — another up close shot of the sphere on the base with the polish / wax sitting next to it. the pencil marks seen here on the sphere came off when we were polishing / waxing it. notice the tape on the legs so people can see them in the dark.
23. recommended wax — the wax that peter recommends you use with your new portaball.
24. new eyepieces — the new 35mm panoptic and 9mm t6 nagler that i bought with the new 12.5” portaball.
25. finder and laser — the rigel quik finder and collimation laser up close and personal.
26. uta, finder, secondary, spider — an angled shot that allows you to see the complete uta and all of the moving parts.
27. light shroud construction — you can see here how the light shroud attaches to the uta. in the previous shots you can see that the shroud goes over the bolts. in this shot you can see that velcro, a zipper, and a pull tie are also involved. the quality is really nice and is very easy to get on and off.
28. bolts up close — you can see here how the bolts are attached to the uta, truss tubes, and how they have metal wire attaching them to the bolts which prevent them from falling on your secondary.
29. secondary up close — an up close shot from the inside of the optical tube looking up at the secondary mirror. yes, the cover is still on but you can see the light shroud, secondary, spider vanes, and the light baffle.
30. primary and batteries — you can see the primary mirror and the 2 rechargeable battery packs that are attached to the bottom of the sphere. also notice two of the three alignment knobs next the the mirror.
31. charger and cable — the recharger pack and cable you can use to recharge the portaball. the pack plugs into the wall and the cable either plugs into a cigarette lighter or into the charger pack.

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telescope day

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Astronomy, Telescope Comments Off

well, today’s the day we’re going to pick up my portaball telescope. i’ve been waiting about 22 months for it’s construction and now i finally get to pick it up. i’ll post a few pictures later after we get home. it’s about a 2 hour drive to new berlin wisconsin to get to the mag 1 instruments locations. let’s hope that the weather gods are nice to me tonight and i get a chance to use it. i’m off for the next week from work so a few observing sessions at night would be perfect. but i’m getting ahead of myself now, i have to pick it up first.

portaball finally done?

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Astronomy, Telescope Comments Off

i received a few communications this week about my portaball finally being finished. well not exactly it seems, but close. if all goes well i can pick it up on monday. we’ll likely be in michigan at that time though which means we’ll pick it up after we get back. 22 months after ordering it and he finally finishes it on the week i’m going to be out of town. did i do something bad to a famous astronomer in a previous life or something?

still no portaball

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Astronomy, Telescope 1 Comment

still no word yet on my telescope, yea i’m a bit pissed. i’m not sure to what level i’m pissed but it’s definitely eating at me. i’ve talked about canceling it a few times but amy keeps talking me out of it, she knows how much i want one. hell i know how much i want it yet i think a certain quality of service is expected when someone pays out $5k for something. heck even my family ask about it all the time, it’s starting to get embarrassing. it makes me look like a fool having hyped it up and after saying so many good things about the portaball and i still don’t have it.

i’ve heard so much about how great the scopes are and i’ve even looked through one. i’ve also heard about the quality of the service and the ordering process yet it’s been nothing but a nightmare for me since i sent in my deposit. first it was “next month”, then “3 months”, then “the glass is on back order because of the war”. the most recent was that the glass was in and now he is waiting on the parts to be made. i’m starting to get frustrated at this point.

i know that people wait 5 years sometimes for telescope orders from astrophysics. the difference is that they know going into the order that they have to wait a huge length of time. the expectations were clearly defined in the beginning of the purchase. had i known that i’d be waiting for 2 years for my 10 month telescope i think i’d have went with another vendor. despite the quality of the views, part of the experience is waiting and interacting with the vendor. i can honestly say that dealing with mag 1 instruments has been painful and completely driven by me calling or emailing them about the order. i know that is going to come back to bite me when i’m still waiting in 6 months for my 10 month telescope but as my brother told me there is always the better business bureau.

with all of this ranting your probably wondering what they should do differently that would make me happy. i can think of a number of things actually:

1. change the order timeframes on your site to more realistic dates, try doubling them. people who expect things to take longer and get them sooner are happy customers not disgruntled ones like me.
2. call or email your customers once in a while. if the date is approaching and you’ve heard nothing from your suppliers then call the customers who are giving you their hard earned money and explain the situation. they will understand … the key though is don’t let the customer get to the point where they are so angry that they are calling or emailing you.
3. if the customer calls, be honest with them. don’t make excuses if you misjudged something, tell them straight up what is going on. then do your best as a professional to rejudge the future ship date. don’t mislead them by providing over aggressive dates.
4. provide status updates. i think this would be great and if i had a company the first thing i would do is write some simple web software to give my customers an idea of where their order was in processing and what the stages of processing are. i mean come on, $5k is a lot of money for a telescope. scale that up and compare it to cars and we’re talking like a $100k plus car. you get insane service from auto dealers, they kiss your ass when you buy a car for that kind of money.

i know this posting is going to come back to bite me and i’ll likely get flack from other happy portaball orders. you know what, i really hope that in a few weeks when i get my scope (not likely) that i am so happy that i have to retract this posting. i just want the service and expectations that i paid for, nothing more, nothing less.

portacall

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Astronomy, Telescope Comments Off

after 18+ months of waiting i finally got the call about my portaball telescope. i have about 3-4 more weeks wait and i’ll be able to begin exploring the universe. you can only see so much through a pair of binoculars and i couldn’t get myself to leach onto my club members another time without a telescope. i know they don’t care, but i did. anyhow, i’m geeked and anxiously looking forward to picking it up. i’ve decided on two eyepieces as well, the 35mm televue panoptic and the 9mm televue nagler type-6. later, after i’ve become more experienced with the scope i want to pick up the 20mm type-5 and 13mm nagler type-6.

for you non astronomy folks, the mm focal length of the eyepiece effects the magnification of the image in a telescope. magnification = focal length of telescope / focal length of eye piece … the portaball i’m getting has a focal length of 1585mm. so with my two new eyepieces i’ll get effective magnifications of 45x and 176x.