On Mar 17, 2023, at 6:19 PM, Brian Valente <bvalente@...> wrote:

Howard that is a beautiful and inspiring story. It reminds me of how lucky many of us are to have the equipment and opportunities we have

Brian

On 03/17/2023 3:15 PM Howard Ritter via groups.io <howard.ritter@...> wrote:

Hey, Lowbrows, Astronuts and Buckeyes— 

This may be TL;DR, but I think it’s an entertaining story for some cloudy night when observers can’t see the stars and imagers have all of their processing up to date (right!).

Some of you may remember that last year I finished a project to replace the alt-az fork mount of my tripod-mounted Meade 16” with an Astro-Physics 1600GTO mount. With just a little custom machining, everything came together beautifully, and my “Sweet 16” Frankenscope came to life. But I quickly realized that taking it to the field once a year for really dark skies, and relocating it twice a year between summers in Ohio and winters in Florida would be impractical. I could handle the components of the mount, but not the tripod or OTA. Reluctantly (so much time, thinking, and effort down the drain!), I decided to sell it for smaller and lighter gear, and gave in to my secret desire to put a PlaneWave CDK14 on the mount, and that on one of Berlebach’s big, robust Graviton tripods.

In December 2022, I sold the whole kit to a fellow amateur astronomer named Felician, who had seen it listed on an astronomy sales site. It’s not often that one of these big, 300+ pound, and awkward scopes changes hands in the first place, but what made this transaction truly extraordinary is that I was selling it from my home in Ohio, and Felician was not just an out-of-town buyer making a decision sight-unseen, not just out-of-state, but out-of-country. Not only that, but he lives on a different continent! In fact, Felician hails from the town of Sfantu Gheorghe (St. George)…in Romania!

Luckily, Felician has a brother, Cris, who lives and works in British Columbia and Washington state. Felician had him serve as his agent on this side of the pond, and that’s who contacted me with an offer to buy the scope. To say the least, I was mildly suspicious: Was someone expressing a willingness to pay many thousands of dollars for a delicate astronomical instrument without testing or even laying eyes on it, with the stated intention of shipping it 5000 miles by truck, ocean freight, and truck again, more likely to be what he says he is, or a scammer? I half expected Cris to tell me he’d send me a cashier’s check for a few thousand over the agreed price and I should send him back the overage in Bitcoin, giving me what he hoped I’d accept as a reasonable explanation for the request, until the bank would call me a week later to tell me the check was a forgery and I now owed them the amount I’d sent back — a classic scam. But my mind was put at ease when he offered to deposit 25% in my PayPal account to hold the scope while he arranged packing and shipping, because if PP accepts the payment and puts it in your account, it’s unquestionably there. Of course, a buyer can commit fraud by claiming the item was not as advertised and demanding a refund, but the more I talked with Cris, the less concern I felt. In addition, I documented the condition of my scope with multiple images. I accepted.

When we had both agreed in principle, Cris identified a shipping company in Detroit, an hour’s drive from my home, and asked whether I could take the disassembled scope there for crating. After that, the crates would be delivered to an international shipper in the suburb of Inkster. I told him I’d be happy to do that, he PP’d me the balance, and a few days before Christmas, my son Phil and I loaded the OTA, the fork, the base, the tripod, and a box of accessories and small parts into an SUV and another car and headed north. I had expected the nav system to deliver me to a big chain shipper in an industrial park, or some other such professional outfit, and I grew anxious as we approached our destination through a grimy and decidedly non-industrial section of the city. I grew more uneasy as I saw that the packer was a sketchy-looking corner mom-and-pop “packing-shipping-mailing” establishment. But this was Cris’s choice, and I had no evidence that these folks couldn’t perform. And the friendly and accommodating guys were wearing shirts with the company’s name embroidered on them, plus the name of the company was a fairly clever pun on the family name of the owners, so there was that. Sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference…

The real sour note came when I discovered that the OTA, which I had stood on its nose in the rear passenger seat and secured (or not) with a seat/shoulder belt, had tipped over on a turn and fallen against the corner of the mount base in the adjacent seat. My heart sank when I saw that this had dented and scratched the OTA, though there appeared to be no internal damage, and certainly none to the optical elements. I had no choice but to snap a couple of images with my cell phone, call Cris in B.C., and apprise him of this new development. Fortunately, he picked up right away, and after he’d seen the images and gotten my assurances that there would be no functional impact on the scope, he verbally shrugged and said, “Well, what else can we do at this point? Have them box it up.” I was relieved and grateful, but incandescently angry with myself for my carelessness and for making it 65 of 70 miles without an incident. Not to mention heartbroken at inflicting an injury on the scope that had been part of my hobby life for 20 years and the subject of my recent extensive project to put it on a modern mount, and which I had always taken such care with. It was doubly heartbreaking actually, like unintentionally injuring a pet in the process giving it away, and I almost cried. I also made sure to take numerous photos of the components of the scope and of a document of receipt and transfer that I had written out at the store and had the owner sign, documenting that I had indeed released it to an agent of the buyer. Later, Cris told me he’d had the store send him photos of the finished packing. He thought it looked inadequate, and insisted that the OTA and the mount be double-boxed before being released to the shipper.

I made up my mind right then to offer Felician a rebate for the decreased market value due to the blemish, but I would wait until the scope had arrived safely. After all, if it should suffer some catastrophe in transit and be declared an insurance loss…

Two anxious months went by, and when I couldn’t stand not knowing anything any longer, I texted Cris. He replied that, unbelievably, Felician had taken delivery of the shipment just three hours earlier, unboxed all the components, found them in great shape, and was as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. A few days later, I got a long letter from Felician telling me about his own background in amateur astronomy, and waxing enthusiastic about the beautiful scope now sitting on his deck and the wonderful views of Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon that it had given him the night before, and attaching some pictures of it in its new domain, already at work imaging the Worm Moon. God was evidently in His heaven, and all was right with the world. I’m now happy that the pet I gave up for adoption looks to be thriving with its new owner.

My son and I have been wanting for some time to visit Eastern Europe, and have in mind doing it next year. We have a standing invitation from Felician to visit Sfantu Gheorghe and be hosted by him, and I believe we’re going to do just that!

—howard

Sic ego dixi vobis

-Praestes Eques Curmudgio 2018