Telescope Reviews: Beat up Astrotrac

This is what me and my friend went through last NEAF too. I will try to post a photo later in the day if I can find it on my work computer.

I received my set of Astrotrac, wedge and the equatorial head from Farah (Woodland Hills) on the first day of NEAF. When I came to my hotel room in the evening, I have started playing with the stuff I received that day and noticed some dings and dents on the equatorial head. Also the DEC tightening screw head, the big circle, was kind of sloppy as if it was dropped.

Of course, next morning I took the equatorial head to the show to ask for a replacement. Woodland Hills booth wasn't open yet but the Astrotrac booth was and Richard , the owner of Astrotrac, was there too. When I mentioned my problem to him he suddenly started overreacting and blaming me and Woodland Hills for the damage. I stopped talking to him as I haven't purchased the product directly from him. I believe I was more than naive and expected him to lovingly care for his product and do something about my problem. After all, I have done my part, paid a lot of money for such a small piece and naturally was expecting to receive a product in brand new condition. Please allow me to drop it and damage it myself!

I waited for Farah to arrive. Explained her my problem. As always, she took care of it immediately. She arranged for the demo unit on the Astrotrac stand to be delivered to me after the show ended. She personally dropped the TH3010 equatorial head to the front desk of my hotel.

The head was a different one for sure. The sloppy thumbscrew and the markings on the RA shaft (these were caused by tightening the RA clutch screw, the little brass tip was displaced during the demo assembly by WH I believe) were gone. But the marking on the body, right beneath the big wheel, was exactly at the same position. This left me puzzled (but there was nothing else to do).....until we come together with my friend Ozzy 2 months later.

He was with me during NEAF and had picked up a complete Astrotac travel kit from OPT. In June, he asked my help to try and test the kit. When we unpacked his set, we noticed an exact replica of that very mark on his equatorial head too. This led us to conclude that this should be something to do with Richard's production method. He should be knowing about this and he shouldn't have tried to put the blame on me or his business partners.

If you consider the amount of money we spent on this system, I think you can conclude none of us is deserving this poor execution. I guess more loving care is needed.

Overall, I find Astrotrac very useful and precise. Astrotrac itself is very well executed. However, I cannot say the same for the Wedge and the TH3010 head. There is great room for improvement on those two items.