my order of Galileoscopes arrived today, finally after some months they are all here - arrived at 7:30 this morning - will npack this evening and give a report.
Anyone else got theirs?
It's a wonder they found me. Posted separately. Address and Customs labels suggest they were posted from Denmark. Just had my name, the name of a very long road, a postcode and a suburb. Fortunately, they printed my email address on the address label (why?) and that gave the posties a good hint.
One rattles a bit when I shake it! Now put them away, Eric!
Would be hankering to see what you guys think of these scopes.
Where did you order these from, is there an Australian location ????
What kid of quality are they for viewing. I have heard that is really amzes most poeple for a small scope.
I've looked through mine and will readily admit that I am barely a novice, so take this with a grain of salt: my reaction was that they aren't very particularly relevent to someone with any level of ok gear. This is an opinion based solely on looking at moon / jupiter, though. I can see the point of them but as I say, I don't know that they have any when you've got "a better one". Personally, I'd rather look through my finderscope
True, but I wasn't exactly planning to replace my SkyWatcher just yet!!
Was thinking more of one for my son and possibly to give the school. The shipping costs are a bit high though, so thought I'd see what others thought of them.
True, but I wasn't exactly planning to replace my SkyWatcher just yet!!
Was thinking more of one for my son and possibly to give the school. The shipping costs are a bit high though, so thought I'd see what others thought of them.
I was actually about to print a retraction of sorts. I went outside had a quick look at jupiter through mine. Through the basic lens, it is actually quite ok. I would say not really much worse than my skywatcher 8 at a fairly low magnification. You can pick out all the moons and so forth. I probably got unlucky in that my barlow lens were a bit chipped and quite frankly, turns a good jupiter view into muck. Hence the disappointment and the swift stroke to order a dob. Honestly, when it comes to a planetary view, I'm hard to please so if you're son is a bit more forgiving I'm sure it'll blow him away. The moon looked sufficiently interesting, for instance.
The scope ended up costing over $50 inc shipping (could be more now) and then a further $50 to mount it. When you start getting to that price, I would imagine andrews has something that could well equal / surpass that but I have to admit, for $15 US, it is a lot of scope.
At the $100 price point, I think andrews low cost range might begin to be more enticing, though.
Cost me about $55 all up. Exchange rate has moved in our favour since my order. But they have flagged a unit price increase for orders as of 10th August - from US$15 to US$20 per scope. Not sure whether shipping cost will change.
OK, here is their quote for one shipped to Victoria, Australia, as of today - US dollars:-
Order total preview: Subtotal:$15.00 Shipping - Other:$28.08 Order total:$43.08
mine cost less but did order ten, with the dollar conversion it was about $43 each, as the shipping decreases lsightly with each extra one you order. the exchange rate is better now also
I built up a second with a newbie last Friday. It all checked it out and she got the hang of it Friday afternoon. Last text message I had was that she and 2 year old daughter (who is fascinated with the Moon) were seated on daughter's floor behind the window, GS ready and waiting for the Moon to clear the trees!
(For the first time I looked through the Galileo 18x eyepiece at a distant roof. What a narrow FOV! Makes Galileo's achievements even more significant.)
This past weekend our local (here in Connecticut) Discovery Center and some other Volunteers had a Galileoscope Building day...We also had a corporate sponsor so the local price here was USD$10 for the scope kit and tripod...
Attached is a low quality picture taken of me and my two sons building our scopes...as happens with all new astro gear as soon as they were put together the clouds came out along with some rain and our viewing night was cancelled...with the tripod they are okay for the price. I reckon we got that much entertainment from putting them together...
I am also attaching the assembly instructions that we used...I found them a bit better than the ones that came with the kits and it also provides a good view to folks of what are in the kits...
I don't think this will be challenging Moonlite or Feathertouch?
