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Hi Robin,
Just wondering what your issues were about buying a Protostar secondary holder and spider? I can only assume it was cost, or a worry about the delivery time?
I have an Astrosystems secondary holder and spider on my 18" Obsession with the optional secondary mirror dew heater. I have Protostar heated secondary holders and spiders on my 14" and 10" scopes. Without question the Protostar units are far better quality units than the Astrosystems. Better built, better designed, better materials. That having been said the Protostar units are the absolute Rolls Royce and the Astrosystems units work just fine. With the Astrosystems units you need to let the scope top end air dry properly after a heavy dew. In a damp environment the collimation bolts/center bolt can get a corrosion build up making it hard to adjust/remove. My 18" accidently got exposed to a damp environment (my fault) and I had to spend a good couple of hours getting all the bolts undone and reconditioning the threads so I could adjust it properly. To be honest at one point in time I thought I had ended up with a solid stuck one piece non adjustable, non removable secondary assembly. That having been said the conditions the UCA was exposed to shouldn't have affected the secondary holder how it did. The UCA's on the other 2 scopes were still in as new pristine condition. Because so much of the US population lives inland many of them have no clue about designing/building things with corrosion prevention in mind. I live less than 1km from the ocean and use stainless steel wherever/whenever possible.
Cheers,
John B
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