PST... Uh oh... Tell me it isn't so...

[sheeny]

I got the PST out for the first time since I've been away... and my heart sunk when I saw this. These photos are crops of the objective. It looks like my PST has the dreaded rust... I'd love someone to convince otherwise...:sadeyes:

Al.

[citivolus]

I hope for your sake that you are the original owner, that really does not look good.

[CoombellKid]

Yup! that's it. It will get worst with time. Mine looked like that 3 months after
I purchased it. Now it covers all but a small section in the middle.

regards,CS

[sheeny]

Oh well... mine's taken 17 months to get to this stage. I'm not sure if it's been developing slowly over the whole time or whether it's deteriorated all of a sudden. I have been aware of the problem, and checking the objective and I hadn't noticed it before. I haven't used it for probably a month or more while I've been away... maybe I have been looking for a change that was happening too slow for me to see a difference between checks, but I think it has deteriorated fairly quickly in the last month or so...

BTW I just rang Sirius Optics (whom I purchased from) and it all sounds quite routine... send it back, they'll send on to Meade... roughly 3 weeks turn around. I managed to find the receipt;)... now all I've got to do is find the box:eyepop: - we have a lot of stuff packed up in a storage shed while I try to sell the house. I'm hoping it's there... but digging it out will be interesting!:whistle:

Al.

[sheeny]

Yeah, no problem there Eric!

Al.

[CoombellKid]

I should send mine in too, I'll need to ring Ron @ Sirius Optics. I brought
mine off them at Astrofest 05. I think the warrenty goes for 30 months.

But to tell you the truth I really haven't notice any down grading of
performance to the image. And Ron told me the fix gives you a slight
loss of contrast.

regards,CS

[rumples riot]

Yep that is the rust. Sorry.

The blue objective when it comes back is heaps better and not prone to this problem.

[rumples riot]

5 Year warranty guys.

[CoombellKid]

On the whole I do think it was pretty slack of Coronado and Meade to keep
shipping these defective units. I brought mine long after this became a
problem. and they say they got a batch of duds, well it must of been a
pretty big batch. I suspect that they knew and kept shipping them. Only
repairing when it bacame an issue for the user. The weekend I brought
mine SAS had theirs on display, and Ron pointed out the problem to them
their one was completely covered in the rust effect, still the views were
pretty good, no different to my brand new one at the time.

regards,CS

[Merlin66]

There's nothing like finding a "rusty" PST to really make you feel really pst off.

I think when you bought, if the views looked the same,it was just lack of practise and your eye practising getting the best image you can. I'm 100% convinced that the image on the repaired PST is MUCH MUCH clearer than the dud. I can easly see detail on the Sun's surface and the first time I used it the flares stood out like proverbial on the edge!

When it clears......... I'm going to add the SM40 to the PST..... Yes, that's another long story.

[CoombellKid]

When I brought mine, it wasn't the first time I had used one, it was after
trying several others over a period of about a year that I decided to buy
one. Even so the inexperienced view looked very much the same in either.
Surfaces feature were were/are still clearly visisble to me weather permitting.

regards,CS

[h0ughy]

mmmm must check mine - i havent used it for a while

[sheeny]

mmmm good luck!

It doesn't seem to be a big deal to get it fixed though... at least it hasn't been for me so far!;)

Al.