In praise of biting off more than you can chew

[Mark McCarthy]

I’m dismayed by all the “sage” advice bouncing around the site lately. Folks seem to just share their own personal preference and limitations of circumstance, presuming it applies to everyone else.

I went to big for my first scope and I don’t regret all the PITA logistics etc etc because it showed me possibilities. Then within a year I went even bigger. If I could have afforded it I would have tried even large.

Should you follow my path? No,, it’s my path. You have your own.

Let your passion be your guide. If it doesn’t work out you can sell.

Mark





from my iPhone

[Ted Hauter]

Gotta dive in deep. Can sell for a loss. Cost of getting into the hobby.

People want a couple big boxes showing up with everything required. They dont want third party stuff they know nothing about even if that is a big cost saver after they figure things out.

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[Ted Hauter]

3rd party or basically our custom friends making our hobby the best it can be have difficult websites, obscure defensive communication. 

Think Amazon. Push a button. Like on their scope. They won't do more.

[Mark Wagner]

It's not a bad idea to bite off "a bit" more then you can chew as long as it's not a choke hazard.

[Peter Santangeli]

The list of companies that have tried "simple, general purpose" is long and sad:

Celestron

Meade

Orion

...many more before that. "Easy to order, everything included" wasn't enough. All these companies stopped investing in technology and fell behind. They could not sell enough with their business model to survive. They never cracked the code of making it easy and fun, out of the box, for the average person.

Someone mentioned the Astroscan earlier - seen as a wonderful/elegant beginners scope at the time. I have one. Bought it for my kids to try when they were young. It's actually pretty terrible. Tiny mirror. Bad views. Hard to use. Frustration in ball form.

The challenge with the hobby, for beginners, has as much to do with the changing nature of people, their expectations, and their natural environment as anything else. The hobby can stay niche or it can evolve to meet people where they are going. The solution will likely be "just enough" technology to increase the immediate bang-for-the-buck, and to make the hobby less complicated and challenging - with an easier introduction, and requiring less dedicated time. 

After they are hooked, there is plenty of opportunity for niche providers of big scopes, complicated setups, etc.

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[Ted Hauter]

Well said.

Seestar is on the right track. One box.

Steve Jobs would say make it beautiful. 

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[Rod Brown]

Our club has an Astroscan which was returned to me (the club scope loan pool wrangler) last week. I had not touched one before. It hadn't had any maintenance for who-knows-how-long, so I disassembled it, replaced the crumbling foam that formerly held the primary in place, thoroughly cleaned it, and collimated it. I also aligned the green laser that the last borrower had added to it.

Thursday night I took it out along with my 18". Views, though not spectacular, were fine. The wide angle view in combination with the green laser (no one other than my group were out) made it easy and quick to navigate around the sky. Set up and take down time was two minutes (extending the tripod legs) vs. the 30 minutes plus for the 18". I had a lot of fun with the little thing. I'm going to add a red dot finder to it so that I can use it when a green laser would be a no-no. 

I've read that quality on them was variable, and I expect that most are in so-so condition at best these days. Also I may have felt differently about it if I was a brand new observer and did not have a realistic expectation of it. So YMMV, but I look forward to taking it out again.

Rod