Has anyone had any follow up from Saxon to assure us that not only have these filters been withdrawn from sale, but that a product recall has been done, with Saxon individually contacting anyone who has bought one with an offer of refund + ?
This is the least they should do, Saxon scopes are to be found at every 2nd camera shop accross australia
I did a school solar field day with my 20 cm SCT and left the scope pointing at the sun with my thousand oaks filter on,forgetting about the finder scope which only had a cover on the eyepiece end, one of the kids told me that the scope was on fire as there was smoke coming from my finder, after examening the cap of the finder scope there was a perfect eliptical plastic lens in the middle of the cap, I pointed out to the kids that was what could happen to their eyes if they looked at the sun with any optical magnification.
40cm Dob with Argo navis
20cm ultima celestron
15x65 Bino's
I have dealt with SAXON before,or more to the point,the company that imports them.This heinous issue comes as no surprise.No apologies for such strong words...this is a deadly serious issue
I am on acres at 'Snake Valley'. Pop: approx 200. About 45k WSW of Ballarat. Nice and DARK & quiet except for the sounds of sheep chewing and horses farting!
Well you're only a resonably short drive from Warrnambool then aren't you. An hour & a bit i reckon. I envy your dark skies...I'm right in town & have a fair amount of light pollution.
First of all, find out if they are really illegal. If not, then find out if anyone ever lost their sight by using one. If not then find out if they have ever been known to fail. If yes to any of the above then write to ACCC (Consumer affairs is no good because this goes beyond state boundaries). If no to all of the above then buy one and enjoy!
I received a letter from Consumer Affairs Victoria today in response to the complaint I lodged regarding the sun filters on the Saxon website.
This response only addresses part of the complaint. One can only hope that the importer now has an awareness of the illegality of the product having been approached by an official agent and will act accordingly.
I had one of these filters about 30 yrs ago on an old 4.5" reflector, cant think of the brand, but I remember screwing it in the eyepiece and withing 10 seconds it virtually exploded, thank god I was not looking through it. Have to admit I was real "green" then and didnt know any better, or should I say I trusted that it was ok. WRONG!!!!
Looks like maybe a private resale of an ebay scope. I don't think much can be done about these sun filters popping up on ebay from time to time.
What's the seller to do? devalue the product by throwing out accessories that came with it? Even if we try to warn them, how are they to respond? On the one hand there is the manufacturer of the scope who obviously thinks the sun filters are perfectly safe and on the other there is some crackpot sending them alarmist emails.
And what can we expect ebay to do? Unless it can be clearly demonstrated to them that something illegal is going on, probably not much.
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A more effective way of dealing with the problem might be through a public demonstration; like buying a bunch of these sun filters and getting them to explode in the focusers of various types of scopes. A show like Today Tonight would love it. Or call in the Mythbusters!!
These type of filters have been LEGISLATED against here in Oz. Have never seen a sun filter from Saxon yet, and don't want to! These types of filters were meant to be used in conjunction with an Herschel wedge where only 5% of the incident light is reflected to the eyepiece, the eyepiece is fitted with a No4 Density sun filter to bring that 5% down to 0.01% which is safe for viewing. The other 90% passes through the prism and out through a hole in the prism cover. If you see one, stomp on it, smash it with a 5kg sledge hammer, and ensure that al that left is glass powder!
I agree that this topic should be a "sticky".
Solar film is an inexpensive alternative as has been mentioned.
It only costs $40-$45 for an A4 size sheet.
I went halves with Rob Xreckor in a sheet, and with that $20 half sheet have turned 3 scopes + their finders, and one monocular into solar viewers. $5 per instrument. How cheap is that.
