Post by patrickm on Sept 17, 2010 18:18:54 GMT -6
OK gang. Here's the deal.
After much, much, MUCH reading, soul searching, and literal lost sleep, here's what I did.
I went for the 9.25" CGEM EdgeHD. Except for a few problems with the CGEM mount when it first came out, I've read nothing but great stuff about the combination. They are also such a hot scope that you can't freaking find them right now. The 8", 11", and 14" are all in stock at various places, but the 9.25 is nowhere to be found, with wait times going out up to 8 weeks. The 9.25 seems to have hit the sweet spot in the aperture vs. portability battle for most serious amateurs who aren't ready to spend $10,000 for an astrograph.
I hate being told I can't find something, and have rarely been boxed out of finding anything--sold out concert tickets, Cubs playoff tickets, whatever--by applying a little Puritan elbow grease sometimes combined with a bit of Texan ingenuity. Cloudy Nights has stories of people finding the CGEM/EdgeHD with a little legwork. I spent Wed night hunting online with no luck, so woke up Thursday and spent the morning making old fashioned phone calls. I started with the Celestron vendor list and worked my way across the US from east coast to west.
I learned a lot during this whole process. I learned that the big scope companies set their prices and enforce it down the retail chain, which is why this scope is the same price anywhere you go ($3099). I told one sales rep that it reminded me of the music industry's whole MAP mess that they got into trouble with Spitzer for, and ended up with $67.4mil in fines for "price fixing." Since then the Supreme Court has reversed the decision on which that settlement was based, and vertical price enforcement is now OK. He said it absolutely is.
I also learned that Celestron does not alert their distributors and retailers to in transit shipments until they turn up on the door. I was told variously that ship notices are never received, and that invoices were usually received anywhere from the day that the goods showed up to even a week after. In contrast to the extreme cost and margin certainty, there appear to be absolutely no supply certainty!
This system seems completely nuts to me. I cannot imagine our music distributor working under these constraints!
So...I worked my way east to west on the phone, running into backorders stretching anywhere "we think" to one to two week out to special orders that would take up to two months. By about 11:30, I had ended up on the west coast when I got my old mate Jon at Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope on the phone, who remembered me from unsuccessfully trying to track down a solar filter for my SLT. Turns out he grew up in Chicago Heights, so we bonded a bit about that, especially after finding out that he had two of these bad boy scopes in stock!!
Wahoo!!
That news sent me into high gear searching for what accoutrements I needed to go along with the scope and whether WHCT had the best price and availability on them. Here's what's coming so far for my combo birthday and early Christmas present from my mom:
Celestron 9.25 CGEM EdgeHD
Orion soft case for 9.25" SCT OTA
Baader Aspheric 36mm 2" eyepiece
Celestron dew shield
TeleVue 2x Big Barlow
1 hand controller extension cord (The primary universal gripe about the scope. Coming from astrophotography-tonight.com)
I am looking for one higher power Nagler eyepiece in the 17mm range as well, but that will probably come from Astronomics to take advantage of their Cloudy Nights discount. (I have learned so much from reading over there. People not as universally nice there as here, but most are. Most folks are also undoubtedly knowledgable.)
Will probably also take Joe's advice and grab the Celestron 2" eyepiece and filter set. And I need a moon filter as well.
All of this stuff should arrive on my door next Wednesday, so prepare for a week of clouds!
To finish off this story, I wasawaiting eagerly awaiting obsessively awaiting my tracking emails, and the first one I got was for a package from USPS. Needless to say, this confused the heck out of me, since I knew darn well that my CGEM was not coming in the post. I sent Jon an email to ask what was up, and he said, "Oh, that's just your SLT solar filter. I think we found it, and so I just popped it into the mail for you free!"
So that's on the way along with my scope.
It's gonna be a long five days waiting for that to show up, but I have plenty to do to keep me busy between now and then. Am in Texas with my mom until Monday, and Tuesday night is book club, so I shouldn't have a problem keeping busy. I'll certainly do my best! Thinking about it, Wednesday afternoon may be the worst, because our UPS delivery is usually about noon, and I'll have the afternoon at work to stare at boxes and resist having to go home "sick" so set the thing up in the living room and try it out.
Yay! and so much to learn for me. Am really looking forward to it.
Robb-
Getting to play with your new scope a bit the other night really pushed me over the edge to get a new scope with a heavier mount. The substantial feeling was outstanding. Watching it quietly slew and then stop dead without bobbing all over the place was one of those experiences where you don't know what you are missing until you see it for yourself. Always dangerous! So I can say thanks for buying yours and can't wait to get them side by side to share views. We don't need Joe with his 11" light hog anymore!
haha...
After much, much, MUCH reading, soul searching, and literal lost sleep, here's what I did.
I went for the 9.25" CGEM EdgeHD. Except for a few problems with the CGEM mount when it first came out, I've read nothing but great stuff about the combination. They are also such a hot scope that you can't freaking find them right now. The 8", 11", and 14" are all in stock at various places, but the 9.25 is nowhere to be found, with wait times going out up to 8 weeks. The 9.25 seems to have hit the sweet spot in the aperture vs. portability battle for most serious amateurs who aren't ready to spend $10,000 for an astrograph.
I hate being told I can't find something, and have rarely been boxed out of finding anything--sold out concert tickets, Cubs playoff tickets, whatever--by applying a little Puritan elbow grease sometimes combined with a bit of Texan ingenuity. Cloudy Nights has stories of people finding the CGEM/EdgeHD with a little legwork. I spent Wed night hunting online with no luck, so woke up Thursday and spent the morning making old fashioned phone calls. I started with the Celestron vendor list and worked my way across the US from east coast to west.
I learned a lot during this whole process. I learned that the big scope companies set their prices and enforce it down the retail chain, which is why this scope is the same price anywhere you go ($3099). I told one sales rep that it reminded me of the music industry's whole MAP mess that they got into trouble with Spitzer for, and ended up with $67.4mil in fines for "price fixing." Since then the Supreme Court has reversed the decision on which that settlement was based, and vertical price enforcement is now OK. He said it absolutely is.
I also learned that Celestron does not alert their distributors and retailers to in transit shipments until they turn up on the door. I was told variously that ship notices are never received, and that invoices were usually received anywhere from the day that the goods showed up to even a week after. In contrast to the extreme cost and margin certainty, there appear to be absolutely no supply certainty!
This system seems completely nuts to me. I cannot imagine our music distributor working under these constraints!
So...I worked my way east to west on the phone, running into backorders stretching anywhere "we think" to one to two week out to special orders that would take up to two months. By about 11:30, I had ended up on the west coast when I got my old mate Jon at Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope on the phone, who remembered me from unsuccessfully trying to track down a solar filter for my SLT. Turns out he grew up in Chicago Heights, so we bonded a bit about that, especially after finding out that he had two of these bad boy scopes in stock!!
Wahoo!!That news sent me into high gear searching for what accoutrements I needed to go along with the scope and whether WHCT had the best price and availability on them. Here's what's coming so far for my combo birthday and early Christmas present from my mom:
Celestron 9.25 CGEM EdgeHD
Orion soft case for 9.25" SCT OTA
Baader Aspheric 36mm 2" eyepiece
Celestron dew shield
TeleVue 2x Big Barlow
1 hand controller extension cord (The primary universal gripe about the scope. Coming from astrophotography-tonight.com)
I am looking for one higher power Nagler eyepiece in the 17mm range as well, but that will probably come from Astronomics to take advantage of their Cloudy Nights discount. (I have learned so much from reading over there. People not as universally nice there as here, but most are. Most folks are also undoubtedly knowledgable.)
Will probably also take Joe's advice and grab the Celestron 2" eyepiece and filter set. And I need a moon filter as well.
All of this stuff should arrive on my door next Wednesday, so prepare for a week of clouds!
To finish off this story, I was
So that's on the way along with my scope.
It's gonna be a long five days waiting for that to show up, but I have plenty to do to keep me busy between now and then. Am in Texas with my mom until Monday, and Tuesday night is book club, so I shouldn't have a problem keeping busy. I'll certainly do my best! Thinking about it, Wednesday afternoon may be the worst, because our UPS delivery is usually about noon, and I'll have the afternoon at work to stare at boxes and resist having to go home "sick" so set the thing up in the living room and try it out.
Yay! and so much to learn for me. Am really looking forward to it.
Robb-
Getting to play with your new scope a bit the other night really pushed me over the edge to get a new scope with a heavier mount. The substantial feeling was outstanding. Watching it quietly slew and then stop dead without bobbing all over the place was one of those experiences where you don't know what you are missing until you see it for yourself. Always dangerous! So I can say thanks for buying yours and can't wait to get them side by side to share views. We don't need Joe with his 11" light hog anymore!
haha...
