Actual Astronomy - Top Ten Techniques for Buying Used Telescope Gear

Buying used telescope gear

0:00It's the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, coming in 3, 2, 1.

0:20Top 10 techniques for buying used telescope gear on episode 552 of the Actual Astronomy podcast. I'm Chris, joining me is Shane. We are amateur astronomers who love looking at the night sky, and this podcast is for everybody who enjoys going out under the stars, and in particular, maybe people who are shopping around for new equipment. But that's not you right now, Shane. That's right. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with everything I have. If I had anything on my wish list, it might be another 90mm Borg apocrymat.

0:58Um, because there is a small part of me that still wants to try a binoscope, and, um, I can't remember the manufacturer. It's not more blue, but... EHS? No, no, no. Okay. But they, they have a, sort of a cage or a mount thing where... Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, you can put both of the Borg 90 FLs in there, and it has the diagonals and focuser and alignment stuff, and it's supposed to work really well and make binoscoping quite easy, actually.

1:30Yeah. Um, so that I wouldn't mind, maybe, if I can find a decent price on a used Borg 90. But, um, other than that, yeah, I'm not really too much into the market anymore. Okay. So, I didn't, I didn't put this in the notes, and just listening to you chat, I'm going to add things in and just, just throw the mic, Shane.

Why choose used gear

1:49Okay. New versus used gear. Yes. Why? Why? Why, yeah. Why would you choose one over the other? Um, lots of reasons. And maybe I'll focus on why you would choose used versus new, because I, I think new is maybe a little more evident. But, um, used, uh, A, you don't, you don't get hit with the depreciation of the gear, because much like a car, when you buy something, when you buy a telescope or a mount or whatever,

2:22um, you'll pay full price. But if you want to sell it, you're probably not selling it for the price you paid. It's probably less. So, when you buy something used, you're already getting that discount sort of baked in, which is wonderful. Um, so it's kind of a good way to try different things. Um, you know, if you buy an eyepiece, a used eyepiece for a hundred dollars, you may like it and keep it. But if you don't like it and you want to sell it, you probably can sell it for a hundred

2:53dollars. So, essentially, it costs you nothing to try, uh, some different gear and see how it works with your setup. So, um, I think that's a pretty big advantage of used gear and it's why I'm drawn to it. It just saves me money. And, um, the other reason that used gear can be appealing is there's a lot of great gear that's no longer made. And, you know, if you want, if you want, uh, to own some of that great gear, you really don't have an option other than trying to find, uh, it used, uh, and a great example

3:26is, well, your seven inch telescope. Uh, my TSA 102, like if you want that stuff, good luck. Like you have to find it on the used market and maybe, um, be patient, you know, as you wait for that stuff to appear. But, but yeah, you know, that's, that's probably the key reasons there. Oh, maybe another one that we've talked about multiple times on multiple episodes is that sometimes new gear comes with a bit of a, I don't know, like a tinkering phase where you

3:59need to get it to work properly. Or, or maybe like in your case, uh, Chris, you've received a telescope with pinched optics in the past that had to go back to the manufacturer for repair. Um, so, you know, sometimes with used gear, somebody else has dealt with all that pain and, you know, they've replaced focusers or they flocked a tube or they've done things to improve the performance of the scope and then you don't have to, it's already done. So it's kind of a nice, nice little perk. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to jump right in here and say, um, that that's what I experienced with

4:33the seven inch, like pretty much almost all of those things, except, except that that telescope held its value. And I believe that I paid about ish, maybe a little less, maybe 10% less than it sold for, for new. It was, it was maybe a little bit less. Um, and, uh, but all of those other things. So for example, the telescope, when it was originally, um, manufactured came with a focus

5:05or a moonlight focuser, but it only had a two inch draw tube and, and that will block a noticeable amount of light. And you can see that in, in a lot of telescopes when you use a two inch. And now with this one, um, the previous owner had, had disassembled the, um, the, the focusing, uh, draw tube and the back end of it and sent it back to moonlight. And they had installed a two and a half inch or so, um, size draw tube area.

5:37And then you just kind of thread in your adapters and put in your two inch diagonal. And yeah, sure. Still using a two inch diagonal will give you some, uh, light fall off, but it's, but it's only happening at that point. So it's, uh, somewhat better. The best thing would be, of course, would be to have like a three or a three and a half inch, and then to have like a three inch diagonal. But this, this gets to be a little bit absurd. And this is probably the best, uh, compromise between that sort of, uh, best world extreme

6:09for visual, but sort of a difficult thing to use in practice and, and, uh, and, you know, having sort of something halfway in between actually that works about 90% better is, is, uh, a great decision by that previous owner. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a great example of, of, you know, gear getting refined just by various owners. Yeah. And that it was out of production, um, by 20 years now, so hard, hard to find those. And, uh, and really Shane is, as you can attest to as well, as long as the telescope is reasonably

6:42well cared for, um, not that that much can be wrong with it really. I mean, telescopes, like, especially when you get into high end telescopes, like Takahashi astrophysics, um, and, and many, even of the more affordable like sky watchers and that, that I've seen, um, have made it through the decades and, uh, look and work, um, often like new. And like you said, typically the, the main thing that might wear out might be a focuser.

7:14And in those instances, you have to make sure that the telescope is now, uh, aligned because the focuser and the optics have to be aligned. And the gentleman that I purchased my from mine from was a bit, uh, fanatical about this and actually had bought his own, uh, uh, refractor, uh, call eliminator in order to, uh, make sure that that new, um, focuser, uh, was optically aligned with the optics and had, had made, uh, minimal adjustments to that, but perfect.

7:46Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're, you, you hit a, I think a real key point too, that, you know, the telescope, like telescopes, eyepieces and filters, there's not a lot that can go wrong with them. So it's fairly easy to inspect remotely. Like if you're buying used gear and it's on a website and the person, you know, needs to ship you the item because they live a long ways away. Yeah. It's, it's somewhat easy or relatively easy to inspect that gear with various photographs to determine the state of it.

8:17It gets a little trickier with motorized stuff. So like, you know, amount, um, much harder, but we can talk a little bit about that as we work through the list here.

Where to find equipment

8:27Yeah.

Where to find equipment

8:28Uh, so where, where to buy stuff, uh, what sort of dedicated astronomy classifieds or not, um, are we looking at here, Shane? Yeah, I would stick with, um, the reputable sites that have been around for a long time. Um, so cloudy nights, uh, astro, uh, buy, sell, um, astro by sell has a Canadian, I think a UK presence and an Australian presence. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, also astro Mart, although astro Mart, um, does have a little bit of a paywall there.

9:00If you want to purchase anything or see pricing, you have to sign up for a membership and pay. And I, I can't remember how much that is, Chris, if it's 10 us dollars or 20 us dollars, it's not a lot, but it's, it's there. And it does, it does a couple of things. One, um, like it is sort of a restriction in a way, but the other side of that is, um, you know, I think you get a little more protection kind of sort of maybe. Yeah. And, uh, I do like that site a lot too, as well as cloudy nights, because you can give reviews

9:33of people selling gear and it just is like another sort of safety check for you to make sure you're going to be happy with the transaction. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, and then we also have the, uh, auction sites in Japan. Yeah. We've talked a little bit about that in the past. Um, you and I, uh, I think frequent by EE. Uh, so it just, the word by EE.jp, um, it's a, uh, a third party company that, uh, will

10:05place bets for, or not bets, um, bids, uh, on auctions and, um, they take care of the shipping, they take care of language translation. Um, so they're, they sit in the middle and, um, just make that market accessible to pretty much anybody in the world, which is really, uh, it's kind of nice. Like you and I have both purchased things, uh, from there and, um, it's sometimes things that you would not find anywhere else or, uh, you just wait a lot longer on the other

10:40sites for, for some of this stuff to appear. And I, I got to mention eBay as well, and kind of, and in full disclosure, I have to mention that, uh, um, when I first worked in it, that they were one of the, uh, partners of, of the company that I worked for, of which I guess I was like a partner in that company. Um, and, uh, but yeah, the company that I worked for, we hosted all the images for eBay. So I sort of had a pretty good working relationship with them because I was the one that kind of

11:16helped support all that at that time, which is kind of weird to say that if you were, if you went back 20, not quite 20 years ago and you were looking at photos on, on eBay, I was the person responsible for helping to make sure those got up there. Well, funny story on my side is the company I work for had a, um, a website that they built called the click a bid and it was established way before eBay was ever registered as a domain. Oh, wow. And, uh, it was basically eBay before eBay, but I think we were just too early and it wasn't

11:52really embraced. So then that project found kind of the trash bin and years later, eBay became a prominent. So you and I are kind of strangely connected via eBay, you know? Yes. Yes. But eBay is still, still around. And, uh, I've, I've bought a few things off there in particular. I bought my 12 and a third inch, uh, mirror off there some way, somehow through a very complicated exchange process. And, uh, that mirror is slowly getting turned into my telescope, uh, currently. So excited for that longterm project. All right. Um, I

12:31think that's about it for, for the, uh, classifieds. I guess you could even peruse things like Kijiji or something like that. That's typically your Facebook marketplace. That's typically where people that I work with or that I know they're typically sending me those kinds of ads. And I'm always like, well, maybe some of those telescopes aren't going to be the best ones for you and, and your family to get into astronomy with. Um, and yeah, that's kind of probably all I should

13:02say about that. But typically that's kind of the way it goes. All right. So how do we inspect

Inspecting for mold

13:10things? Uh, let's, let's, uh, well, let's talk about a dirty little issue here, Shane. Let's talk about mold. Yeah. Yeah. Mold is, um, yeah, you just, you, you want to really, really avoid mold because not only is it probably ruining whatever you're thinking of buying, but if you purchase something with mold and you start attaching your other gear that is hopefully not moldy, uh, those spores will travel and, uh, can start to, I don't know if infect is the

13:44right word, but kind of infect or impact your other gear. So like, you know, example, if you buy an eyepiece that's got mold in it, uh, and then you put it in a diagonal, well, now your diagonal is at risk, uh, for, you know, developing some mold, but so is the telescope because all of those spores now can travel through that whole OTA. Um, now the probability, I'm not sure, but it's certainly a risk and, uh, you definitely want to look for mold in any optics that you would be buying and

14:16molds. Usually it's kind of hard to describe. Best thing to do would be just to search for some images on the internet, but, um, it's kind of spidery, you know, like it, um, it just looks like spider web to me a little bit. Um, and sometimes you can have like very little mold, but it's still there. And sometimes the whole thing can just be like destroyed essentially. And, and, uh, what mold will do is it kind of eats into the coatings, um, on, on lenses or on optics and ruins it essentially.

14:49Um, now it depends how long the mold has been there for. Like sometimes if it's fresh, you can essentially wipe it off. Um, and another thing to do is like, if it's an eyepiece or, or a telescope blends, um, this is a little tricky, but point it at the sun and just let the sun kind of cook through there. And, uh, careful doing that folks. Yeah. There's, there's risk, but it, it will cook that mold for sure and kill it. Um, and if you catch it early enough, it doesn't really impact

15:21the coatings, but, um, it's, it's super risky. I would just stay away from mold altogether. It's not good. Um, you've had a couple of experiences. I mean, you, didn't you throw something out once? Cause it was bad. Yep. Yep. And, um, you know, I've got a few school of hard knock stories from used gear that I've purchased, like not doing my own due diligence on photographs. Um, or in one case, and it's only once that it happened. Um, actually, no, I guess it's happened twice. Although

15:53one was a more of a cosmetic casing issue where the, the seller essentially lied to me, you know, and told me everything was fine and I get the item and it's not fine. But, uh, um, that's part of the risk. But like I say, in hundreds of transactions, it's only happened a couple of times to me and probably more my fault than anything. The weirdest thing I think that ever happened to you that's sticks up in my mind is, uh, you bought a, uh, used telescope once and it actually looked like the person had, had dumped in several containers of just like

16:28household trash that was around the house as the, uh, as the padding. It was something like that. Yeah. We'll talk. So this is a top 10 list, Chris. Oh yeah. I think we'll get into that down below, but sorry. Which is that story. Okay. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Okay. Uh, test mechanical operation and purchase, uh, range local pickup where

Testing mechanical operation

16:50possible, uh, rack the focuser through its full range to ensure smooth motion, verify the mount, lock knobs, tighten properly, check for wobble, uh, and strip threads, et cetera. So yeah, I bought a used mount and you also have to have expectations. Um, so when I bought my mount, I bought it from a local individual, a listener to the show and yeah, I hit that mount it was on like its third owner. Maybe I was the fourth, third or fourth anyway. And it had seen, uh, lots of action over the years and it, you need to understand like your purpose

17:24and what you're doing. So at the time when I was buying that mount, I was actually buying it to put outside permanently and I didn't have an observatory and I decided, um, um, um, who knows if I'll ever get an observatory built. I'm just going to put a pier in or a big tripod and then just go up and mount various telescopes to it as, as I saw fit. So I was totally fine that that mount was, um, was an opera perfectly operational. Um, but definitely,

17:56uh, had seen lots of miles. In fact, I mean, it was in pretty good shape for such an old mount. And then I did kind of use it like that to a certain respect. And I think that kind of, uh, probably didn't do it, uh, any kind of amazing, uh, things, I guess is the way to put it, uh, having it out in the winters at minus 40 and then, um, get it in, in the observatory and, and that kind of thing, uh, and kind of suffering through quite a, quite a bit of, uh, uh, of bad weather challenges here in Saskatchewan. But, but I got that mount

18:32at the time for like, Oh, I can't remember. I think the mounts are going for 6,000 ish. I got it for like 1500 or less, um, came with all kinds of like all the parts you could want some extra stuff. It was great. And that was a really good deal for what I needed it for. I had saved up to buy a new mount at the time. And, and because of that, the difference enabled me to get my seven inch, which magically became available, um, you know, within about a year

19:05after buying that mount. Yeah. It really came together quite nice for you. Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of my bit on testing the, the mechanics and kind of doing your due diligence. I guess I kind of sort of lumped three and four into together here a little bit shame, but oftentimes you don't have a chance to go and test out mounts, but typically I haven't had problems. The only problems that I had with that were just, um, uh, needed a hand controller, uh, update. And I think

19:37probably because of the way I think the previous user was using it with, um, like apps and stuff like that. And I really wanted to use the hand controller. And so, uh, Alistair Ling, uh, who's coming for a visit, uh, he, uh, he did an updated hand controller for me and sent that down. And then after that, um, it did work quite a bit better, but then, yeah, it was kind of making a bit of a funny sound and there's a variety of reasons for that, but yeah, it kind of was out in, in extreme weather for, for three years before, before I ended up replacing it with a brand new one.

20:10Mm-hmm. I did buy a Takahashi, uh, Lapidese modified, um, used, uh, that was a very strange experience. This is, I'll tell, tell the story since we're talking about mounts, if that's okay, unless you wanted to cut in with your, one of your stories. No, go for it. Um, I bought a Tak Lapidese and these are small, very heavy Aldaz mounts. So, so they're not very big, but I think it weighs like eight pounds or something like that. And it's, you know, it's not much bigger than what will fit

20:43in your two hands. Um, and so I had all kinds of plans for this and I was really excited. I bought it. It was, it wasn't in ideal condition, but it was supposed to be in perfect working condition. And it was, it worked perfectly and it had like the optional Vixen, um, plate mount on it. Um, and they came with these two really short stubby plastic, um, what do you call them? The, the directional things that you turn Shane, what are those called? Anyway, Altaz knobs. Yeah. Something

21:20like that. Slow motion. Yeah. The altitude knob and the, and the, uh, Xemith knob. Anyway, but they're very short. So what I did is I, I had a custom set of, of, uh, aluminum ones made that were the right length for me and for, for my scope, where it would set, I set my scope up and did all these measures and had these custom made so that I could look through the telescope and just kind of turn it. And I'll tell you, it works so well. I mean, I still have it. I still use it all the time. It's my, probably my most used mount. And, um, and you, you can pretty much put an object in the center

21:56and keep it tracking and it feels natural that you can track without even thinking. And, uh, it's the best thing next to having like a proper electronic tracking mount. Yeah. I like that mount quite a bit. It's a, it's a joy to use. So when that mount came though, I didn't really have a great tripod for it. And, uh, and, and Rudy Dorner, Rudolph Dorner, sadly, who, who passed away and my friend, Tim, who also sadly passed away more recently, um, uh, they were, they

22:28were friends and introduced, uh, Tim introduced me to Rudy and Rudy showed up, had this really great wooden tripod, which he gifted me. And I mean, I really felt bad. He had built it. Um, he had used some old Skywatcher parts before there was Skywatcher just sent to parts and, and had made these, uh, cherry lags and all this stuff. And it was really kind of a neat, uh, tripod, but, um, we had to modify the mount in order to go on this. So we, we rethread it

22:59whole, we drill the hole in the side of it to lock it in, like tap the hole. And, uh, and I put these new, um, you know, knobs on to help with guiding. And I think there was something else we did to it as well and get it all working. And my friend, Tim was like, well, look like this isn't going to be the same mountain. Like it's going to look different. It's going to have some holes in it, but it's going to work really well. And I'm like, let's do it. Who cares? You know? And, and cause at the time I think I spent like four or $500 on it, which for me at the time was kind of like all the money in the world. Um, but anyway, he, uh, he did all this to it and, uh,

23:36we got it working and took it. It works beautifully. Get home the next day and get an email from the guy. And he's like, Hey, I'll buy it back from you for like another hundred dollars. And I was like, I wrote a bag and said, well, just so you know, this is what it looks like now. And the guy never responded. I was like, yeah, that was, that was it. But, uh, it's such a great, it's such a great mount. Um, I think some of the other mounts are kind of based on anyway. Okay. So do you have any

24:09kind of mount operations stuff to chime in with for buying used mounts?

24:15No, I think that's really it. Like just make sure the axis is smooth and, uh, get the motion, you know, works properly. Yeah. That's about it.

Comparing retail pricing

24:26This is a big one. Um, this has been discussed quite a bit on cloud at night, especially in the past year, compare against retail pricing. And, and the big thing with that, uh, is that, uh, some people have, have been commenting that, um, some of the, uh, uh, used ads are at a higher price than new. And I right away kind of knew what was going on there. So, and it can be a little bit

24:58strange and, and nobody's trying to pull the wool over somebody's eyes. I think in most, in most cases, anyway, it's just, it's just an honest ad. Um, but in particular, like with the explore 92 degree series, because those things fluctuate so much in price shame. Like I think there was a time that they were like 11 or $1,200 Canadian. And there was a time where they were 399 or $499 Canadian. And they've kind of come up and down and all around in between over the years. Like,

25:33and I'm not saying they were, I think they were introduced at 399 or 389. And then they went up to this high price. They came back down to almost that price again. And it's been, I think there's been a whole variety of reasons for that over the years. And honestly, I think some of those folks who maybe bought them at higher prices, um, maybe even dropped them and said, well, I bought it for a $1,000. I'll sell it for 800. And maybe at the time it was selling for 699 or something. So it seems like it's selling for more, but it's still selling for less than the person bought it for. It's just

26:07the pricing fluctuation on some things can be rather extreme. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And, um, you know, maybe just to circle back to where we started here, new versus used, if you do buy new, that's something to factor in is oftentimes, uh, depending on your manufacturer, uh, they will run sales occasionally throughout the year and explore scientific is famous for this. Um, you know, you may not want to pay full price, uh, even if you're buying new, maybe you may want to wait for

26:37some of these sales to get a better price. Same with Teleview now. Teleview, um, does have frequent sales, especially around the March, April timeframe around Neaf. Um, you know, had David and Agler on certainly would like to have, uh, Scott on from, uh, from Explore at some, at some point as well. And, and others still, um, just, just to, uh, just to talk about their, their different products, but yeah, the, the, the manufacturers do have sales and sometimes those sales can be significant. Um,

27:10sometimes independent retailers kind of sales. Like I bought my 22 Nagler from a store in Toronto. Um, they, they had like a flash sale of something on and I wrote and said, well, what will you do in a 22 Nagler? I wasn't even that serious about buying one. I just kind of had always wanted one. And they said for this price. And I was like, well, that's almost like half price. It was 40% off. And they, they said, well, even you buy that now we'll throw in free shipping. And I said, well done. And so I thought, oh, it's going to be like a manufacturer second. It was no, it was brand

27:43new eyepiece. It was just right day, right time. Don't know if they had four in stock and they were just trying to clear them out or who cares what the story was. It's a perfectly good 22 Nagler eyepiece from brand new, brand new in box. Didn't look like anybody had ever even looked at it. So who knows, but I got one for a half price, you know, that's awesome. That happens, you know? So it depends. Like if, if you really want something, um, you can't even wait it out because I could have, I tried it. Of course I kept the 22 Nagler. It's one of my most used

28:17eyepieces, but if I didn't like it, I could have easily turned around and sold it for more than what I paid new for it. Right. So that just happens. Yep. For sure. Um, yeah. And Shane,

Getting closeup photos

28:30this one, you might know a little bit more about getting closeup photos and doing like pencil tests where I guess like you put a pencil against it to show the size of any kind of marks or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And also like if you're getting a photograph of an eyepiece and they're trying to photograph the, like the, like the condition of the glass, um, you need the right background or else it doesn't really pop out. And it kind of depends, but I find like white usually is pretty good, like a white piece of paper or sort of a muted color. You, you don't

29:05want a dark color. That's for sure. Um, kind of a lighter step, like, um, kind of just consistent color in the background. Um, and then when the person's taking the photograph, focus is important and it needs to focus on the, like the lens, like the eyepiece and not the wall behind it or whatever the, uh, kind of the eyepiece is pointed at. Cause if it's focusing in on whatever that image might be, like you, then the actual glass is out of focus and you might miss some imperfections

29:39and you know, a little bit of dust is fine. Like that's pretty much on every optic. So I wouldn't get too worried about that, but you're looking for scratches, mold, maybe a coating deterioration or lifting. Um, which it's kind of hard to describe what that looks like. Um, I don't know if you have a way to, to, uh, state that Chris, so people can kind of understand what that looks like. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Um, I think you've, you've kind of hit the nail on the head with that one, Shane. You have more experience than I do on that. Yeah. You really just need to,

30:14um, just do again, do an internet search for like coating deterioration and it can manifest itself in different ways. But, um, yeah, that's kind of, this is maybe the trickiest part of, of buying used gears, getting the right photographs for you to assess the condition of it. Um, but what I would say is, you know, any seller should be willing to provide as many photos as you want. So just ask. And if they're not willing to provide you those photos, I wouldn't walk away. I'd probably run because, you know, what are they hiding? Um, so yeah, that's, uh, that's part of the

30:50due diligence, you know, just make sure you're feeling confident, um, about the condition of the gear through the photographs and really even just through testimony. Like a lot of, a lot of folks, almost all of them, like 99.9% of the people selling gear, um, do worry about their reputation and they do want you to have a good transaction. So yeah, just about everybody is, is extremely forthcoming with, um, you know, with the condition and, and all of that. And there's even been times where I've purchased something and I felt like there was an imperfection that

31:25wasn't represented that the seller should have known about and they'll offer, you know, to take the item back and give me my money back. Um, or even provide a, you know, uh, like a discount for kind of the miss on whatever that may have been. So, you know, even when you receive the item and the transaction is, I guess, technically closed, if you're not happy, I'd still reach out and have a conversation with the seller to see if there's anything they're willing to do. Yeah. And I haven't had many bad experiences at all. Typically I would say in general, overall,

32:02the vast majority, 99.9% of people, I think are pretty straightforward. If you say like, what are they, what are the lenses like? People will say, well, you know, uh, there's dust there, but there's no mold, there's no blah, blah, blah. Like they're going to be fairly straightforward. I would say extremely straightforward, not know fairly about it. Um, the only bad experience I had was actually, it was, it's strange. It wasn't even with equipment or anything. It was, um, with books. I had bought these three semi-rare books that were supposed to be like in B plus condition.

32:36Um, and the person just like never got around to sending them to me. So I ended up having to go to the, uh, online site, uh, that I purchased them there and said, Hey, like, is there anything you can do? Like I bought these from the guy and, and he never, never sent them. It was like a month or two months later. And, uh, and they eventually did rejoke and touch through some, I don't know, something or other. And the person did send them to me and they were like in like C minus or D plus

33:07condition. They were pretty rough. I wasn't extremely happy, but at least I, I did get the books. They were, they're kind of cool books to have, but they were, they're in rough shape. Um, the only other thing I had that was really weird, I guess I would just chalk this up to somebody who was inexperienced. This was sort of early on in my whole adventure in this probably about the second or third thing I ever bought was an eyepiece. It was one of those big Spears Wallers. And, um,

33:38it was a rare one. It made me think that, you know, who's going to own one of these rare eyepieces. It's somebody who knows a lot about eyepieces, really into eyepieces, or it was a prototype and, uh, and maybe somebody had just given it to them. Um, they were into astronomy and they were getting out or it didn't work well. And they just didn't know much about eyepieces. And what they did is they just took the eyepiece box, put some tape around the bottom and put my address tape to the top of the eyepiece box without anything inside of it, except for the eyepiece and just shipped it

34:11through the mail. It was totally fine, but it was very strange. I think I still have the eyepiece box around somewhere. It just has like an address tag on it. And that's it. Didn't have any padding or anything, but eyepieces are pretty tough. They are pretty tough. That's true. And so I was like, all right, look through it and yeah, no issues. It's, it's, uh, fine. I'm really getting ahead of us here though. Uh, closeup photos, uh, storage and service history. Yeah, that's, uh, that's an

34:44important one. Um, just the history in general of how it was used, you know, like, um, you bring up a great point about an observatory and if amount is stored in an observatory kind of 24, seven, three 65, um, it has a different life than something that's stored indoors under climate control and all of that. Right. And, um, you just should know about that because it can shorten the life of gear. So, uh, find out about all of that. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm, I'm not,

35:18you know, I didn't buy that original amount to have a brand new amount. I bought it to be used hard and I used it for hundreds of nights and I think it kind of just sort of lived out its life. Um, and it wasn't new when I got it. And then, and then those mounts came down drastically in price and, uh, all-star telescope over in Alberta gave me a, I mean, it was just a regular deal that they had running. Anybody could call up and get it with any sort of special deal for, uh,

35:48actual astronomy insiders or anything, Shane. They, they just gave me the regular deal and I, uh, I bought them out there. I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't even, oh man, I don't even want to say, but it was maybe twice as much. Uh, maybe it was a couple, 3000, something like that. And then because of all these other parts and Mike has one as well, we have all these parts for the AZ EQ6 now everywhere.

DIY modifications and payload

36:18Watch out for DIY modifications. This one, I don't know. I, I feel like any of the DIY modifications that I've ever had on equipment has been to my liking. The previous owner of the mount had put in, uh, they had, um, done like some vinyl wrapping of some of the stuff that was in red and I kind of liked it. I was like this, I'd like the look of this. If I, if I was into doing that stuff, I would have done it. They threw some NASA stickers on there and I was like, that's cool.

36:50I like it. I didn't do it, but I was fine with that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think it's good to be aware of any, you know, DIY, DIY. Um, but yeah, I wouldn't say that that's like a showstopper for me either. Um, because in many cases, the, whatever they've built is, you know, probably an advantage. Um, but you may just need to ask a few more questions about, um, like functionality, like depending on what they built, maybe, you know, you have to tighten a wing nut or do something kind of unique to ensure its performance or whatever. But, um, I wouldn't

37:26be too scared of a DIY. Yeah. And so like with my, with my seven inch, the guy's customizations, which actually like he, he did a little bit of himself, had somebody else do some, had moonlight do the stuff for the focuser. And I had some trouble understanding what was done and how it worked. Um, cause I hadn't owned a moonlight focuser before. And one of the things that came that baffled me was, uh, no pun intended cause there's baffles in the telescope. Um, one of the things

37:59that was weird was that it came with a one and a quarter adapter for the focuser. And, but it had a two inch, um, adapter and it looked like it was all just part of it. Like you, like it looked seamless, like it didn't really appear to be something you could dismantle, but you can actually unthread that and thread this in. And so, um, I guess the reasoning is if you were using a Bino viewer, you may wish to use that one and a quarter for whatever reason, or if you wanted to just use

38:34one to quarter inch diagonals for whatever reason or other, uh, devices you, you could just do that. But I had trouble understanding how, how some of those things worked. Cause it was a little bit different than what the regular off the shelf, uh, components were. So I did a, some, I was like, really kind of questioned him on it. And I think he was, maybe I was a little bit too stern in that. Cause I was like, how, like, what is this? Like, why did, like, how does this work? Like, why did you send this? Like, it doesn't even look like there's a, it was like, no, no, it works like this. And this is like, he had to kind of walk me through it and explain again. He may have even

39:08explained it originally. I just didn't quite understand. Cause I'd never seen, uh, it worked like this, but the really cool part is, is that you can swap in, uh, different draw tubes and different holders and all kinds of other stuff, um, to accommodate different gear of different, uh, like requiring different levels of back focus and that sort of thing. Cool. It makes a lot of sense. It's just that telescope is a little bit more complicated. Um, not, that's not a beginner telescope, Shane, perhaps fair to say. Yeah, I would agree. Don't start with a seven inch refractor.

39:42Yeah. Or make sure you know what you're getting into if you decide to do that. Yeah. Evaluate mount payload capacity realistically. Yeah. I see that one quite a bit. I, I definitely also push, you know, like an older mount, a lot of miles on it. I put 42 pounds on, has a 44 pound weight capacity and didn't balance it properly. And yeah, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do either. And I just take, just leave it sitting there for years.

40:14Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And this is just general advice for new or used mounts. Um, and I don't know if there's like a general rule out there, but I, I think if you kind of run it maybe 50 to 75% of its advertised capacity, you should be more than okay. But running, running anything at like a hundred percent of the spec is usually not a good idea.

Payment methods and safety

40:37Payment. Um, I've done payment all kinds of different ways. I always feel a little sketched out, but other than those books, I've never had any troubles. Yeah. And, um, like, I guess it depends like here in Canada, like, you know, it can be PayPal, but most transactions are just e-transfer. Um, and e-transfer really has no protection on it, but I've never been burned. Um, but I also like intentionally don't make very large purchases

41:10that way, you know, just in case, like I'm not probably going to send thousands of dollars via e-transfer, unless I've had like phone conversations with the individual or maybe even FaceTime conversations, um, just to give me more confidence that everything's going to be okay. Um, but if I am, you know, if I don't have those assurances, then I will push for PayPal so that I have purchase protection. And if the seller's unwilling to accommodate that, then again, I may walk

41:42away. Um, usually the big issue with, uh, the purchase protection on PayPal is it costs, uh, the seller money essentially. Like, I think it's like 3% of the sale comes off of the payment and, um, I can understand that concern on their side. So there's been times where I'll tell them that I will pay the 3% cause I want the protection, you know, and they're usually okay with that. Yeah. Like you said, it depends like, like strangely enough on the smallest items. Yeah. I've typically used PayPal. When I bought the seven inch, I didn't.

42:16And there's a few reasons for that. One is, um, it wasn't an individual I knew, but it was somebody you actually knew Shane. And I connected with you and said, Hey, do you know the guy? And you were like, yeah, I bought all kinds of stuff for him. And he was somebody that you had kind of also bent that role for. And he's also like very well known here. And I was like, well, this is, and I talked to him three times on the phone. He's well known, kind of knew where he was at and, you know, both well known here in Canada as well as sort of online. And, um, uh, it's always a risk, but you know,

42:53it's kind of like in life, you know, you got to kind of live your life and try to do the things you want to do. And this is just how this guy rolled. And, uh, and I never saw anybody yourself included, I checked out another reference and yeah, that person was fine. Um, I was fine. If somebody called me and said, how is this guy to deal with? I'd say, yeah, don't bother wasting the extra money on, uh, on any kind of insured kind of transaction, because it's, it's not worth it, especially when

43:24you are, you know, maybe, uh, trans transferring so much money, you really want to make sure that that's going to be a pretty seamless transaction anyway. So sometimes it can be the reverse versus maybe you're buying an eyepiece for a few hundred dollars and you know, you might, might want to just do it in that instance because it's not really going to cost you that much more. But when you're buying the big ticket items, yeah, you really want to be pretty, uh, locked sure that you're going to, going to get the equipment it's in the condition it's in and, and, and check out like other folks like directly that have dealt with the person. Like I chatted

43:58with Shane. Um, and then there was also somebody else I connected with as well, um, that I think the person had given me or whatever, but they were, they were like also a well-known person. So it's like, Oh, this is either a very elaborate, uh, scheme involving the person I do podcasts with every week or it's legit. Yeah. Yeah. And like my experience has been like, like kind of to trust humanity. Like most people are good people and, uh, they just, they want you to be happy and, and no, you know, there's very, uh, like probably not, can't say there's no, uh, perpetrators out there in

44:34the used astronomy world, but, um, for the most part, I'm not too worried. Yeah. You're going to kind of see those. And, um, and again, like, you know, if you're buying any kind of big ticket, you should probably either, you know, know, know who the person is or know somebody who knows somebody, especially like, you know, in Canada, we just don't have that many people and pretty quick, you should be able to find somebody who knows somebody if you're really into this astronomy business, uh, any, anyway, but you have not used those safeguards.

45:06Yep, exactly.

Shipping and packing risks

45:07Okay. Shipping. We keep the bonus item here. Bonus item here. I put this in. Um, I, I keep coming around to it. Um, but, uh, Shane, I know you've got some, some great stories. I've got one or two as well. I already told one. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, don't assume that the seller has ever shipped anything before. Um, yes, because they may not have, and you may get an eyepiece just in a box with no protection sent to you, or you may get a telescope box filled with, as you mentioned earlier, what looked like just

45:42their trash bin and no other, no other protection with, you know, wrenches in the box flying around and scratching the telescope, which really did happen to me. Um, it was quite a, quite an unfortunate situation. And, and, um, that came from Japan and it was, it was a vintage telescope. It was, um, Oh, which one was that? The, the Takahashi TS 65, I think. And it was a long focal length, uh, acromat. Like, um, I can't remember what the focal length was a thousand millimeters

46:17or 1200. I can't remember. Um, so anyway, the point of me saying all of that is the, it was quite a large box because it was a vintage scope. It was a wooden box. So it was heavy. There was a mountain there, counterweights, wrenches, eyepieces, filters, books, a whole bunch of stuff that, you know, originally came with this telescope. Um, some of it was secured in the box. Some of it wasn't, uh, there is, yeah, like crumpled up trash really

46:49provided no additional protection. And I ended up filing a dispute using, um, I think it was my credit card cause I, I don't know that that was a PayPal purchase, but anyway, um, uh, Visa actually like, I think refunded me the purchase amount for, for the transaction. They wouldn't refund the shipping, which is whatever, right? At least I got something back. But, um, yeah, like there's an example of, of a absolutely terrible packing job. And, you

47:25know, when I've sold things before I've had the seller, um, I wouldn't say dictate, but sort of dictate how they want it shipped to them. And I'm okay with that. You know, if they want me to take it to UPS and get UPS to pack it, cool, I'll do it as long as they pay. Um, or I've even just had them say, Hey, can you please make sure it's, you know, well wrapped in bubble wrap and you use a sturdy box and it's like, no problem. I can do that, but don't be afraid to say that too. Cause again, somebody may not really think

47:56about protecting this thing in transit. And, um, you know, even though eyepieces and all this stuff is, you know, can be pretty resilient. Um, I still want things wrapped in bubble wrap and, and not be able to kind of move around within the box. I want, you know, the box to be a, uh, you know, decent quality cardboard with, you know, well taped, like you, as soon as it leaves that seller's hands, it's kind of like in a way, not necessarily their accountability anymore, or it certainly enters a gray zone where it's kind of both

48:31accountabilities, but also nobody's accountability. So, um, yeah, make sure you, you get that thing packaged properly. Um, or you might be disappointed. Yeah. And I mean, again, it also depends, um, you know, that, that was the only small friction point I had with that telescope. And it was, again, like you said, it's like nobody's fault. Um, but especially now, and this was just three years ago and, you know, kind of like the post pandemic world, everything has gone up in price, especially shipping things.

49:03And, uh, like initially we thought shipping this telescope was going to cost three, maybe $400 plus a little bit of insurance. And it, and it was like a multiple of that. Like it was like around a thousand dollars to ship it, to do it properly. Right. You know, yeah, we could have done it less proper and, but it just came down to, well, I mean, I'd never been involved in shipping a seven inch refractor before. There's not a lot of seven inch refractors around. So it's not even like, you can just like, Oh, I'll just wait for one to come up

49:37locally. Cause I think it's about the only one in Western Canada. Uh, well, no, there's the seven inch up and up and end, but regardless, there's just not many seven inches around, no matter how you cut it. And the chances of finding one for sale are unlikely. And, uh, and you want to make sure that it gets you're like, it's in a near mint condition. I'd say like a condition ish and a couple of small marks on it. One of them I didn't think was there before. So I might've put the mark on the tube. Um, but in general, it really is very

50:08much just like new. It's so well built. It's been in the observatory. Um, I've seen lots of light in there and still looks like brand new. So it's a great, great instrument. I do keep it secured and covered, not in use and all that kind of good stuff too. So not quite as, uh, as open to the elements as the, as the mount has been. Um, but, uh, yeah, that one was a bit of a, a little bit of a hiccup to get here, but am I glad I did it in the end and paid the extra to get it overnighted, to get it custom packed and wrapped, um, using

50:44like whatever kind of requirements they have for wrapping and shipping optics. Yeah. Because I got that telescope, it's 20 years old and it looks like brand new and it arrived here in absolute, the identical condition. It left that guy's hands in. So that was worth it. That was worth it, right? Yeah. It's the cost of doing business essentially. And you bring up a great point, Chris, that don't like, don't assume either that the shipping cost is a certain amount because at least with the larger stuff, like with mounts and weights

51:16and big telescopes, shipping can be exceptionally expensive depending on the method and, you know, a few other factors, you know, around packaging and all of that stuff. So, um, you know, it, it can certainly change the economics of any purchase. Um, so definitely get estimates, uh, before you commit if that's of concern. And I, like, I have a six inch max suit off that's, that's somewhat rare, but not, it's, it's somewhat rare. It's really good. It's a,

51:48it's a excellent addition of it. There is a listener that might be listening to this. Um, I would like to sell it to them, but the telescope itself is really not that valuable. Um, and the shipping of it, um, you kind of want to put it through that similar process, which I think it's going to double like what the, the value of the telescope would be ish, give or take. And it just seems like not a good idea.

52:18So yeah, for sure. I got to take a drink of water. Yeah. Well, as you're, as you're wetting your, your throat there, um, that kind of like, that's it. I think, right. There's, I don't know that there's much else to consider, but, um, I think if we were to sum this up, uh, you know, of, of buying used gear, it really is just about due diligence and ensuring you're comfortable with the purchase and comfort comes usually from information. So don't be afraid to ask for that and, uh, you know, ensure that you are aware of what you're getting and, and no

52:53surprises. And if you can do all of that, I think this is a great way, uh, to buy gear and it's a great way to try gear. Um, I'm a big fan of buying used. I, you know, I've done it my whole time in this hobby. And, you know, if there was a ratio between how much I bought new versus used, I would say at least 75% of everything I own came through a used channel. Um, it just, uh, it's the way I like to do it. It's again, you save some money and you get to try lots of different things that way.

Show wrap up and credits

53:24Sounds good. Please subscribe, share the show with other stargazers, you know, send us your show ideas, observations, and questions to actual astronomy at gmail.com. If you want to get in the draw for a RASC observers hat, it's a winter hat. Um, I've got four of them. We're going to give away and, uh, just become a patron supporter. Your name goes in the draw. It might, uh, yeah, might hopefully get a few more people interested, Shane. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

53:55You are listening to the 365 days of astronomy podcast.

54:05The 365 days of astronomy podcast is produced by the planetary science Institute. Audio post production is by me, Richard Drumm. Project management is by Aviva Yamani and hosting is donated by libsyn.com. This content is released under a creative commons attribution, non-commercial 4.0 international license. Please share what you love, but don't sell what's

54:40free. This show is made possible. Thanks to the generous donations of people like you. Please consider supporting our show on patrion.com forward slash Cosmo quest X and get access to bonus content without your passion and contribution. We won't be able to share the stories and inspire the worlds. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with the listeners worldwide. As we wrap up today's episode, we're looking forward to unraveling more stories

55:11from the universe with every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories and each milestone in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it. Until next time, let the stars guide your curiosity.