Telescope Reviews: AstroGizmo's AstroGazer

my first post to CN as a member hopefully it's not too long. But I'll add my own two cents on the AstroGazer - Thanks,

AstroGazer observations from first assembly in December and assembly and use the night of 1/4/08.

I picked up my AstroGazer at Jeff’s doorstep on the way back from a hunting trip after Thanksgiving and I did put it up in December but did not get a chance to use it with scope inside. Here are some of my observations based on that build and last nights usage with an 18 inch Obsession with SC and AN. Overall I am very satisfied with the AstroGazer so hopefully you won’t find the critique overly critical just thorough.

I have not got under a two hour assembly time yet. I’d like to get it down to 1.5 hours and that looks doable – I’m not in a race and I assembled the second time from memory which went Ok other than having one of the fabric rounds installed inside out which reverses the Velcro so that was a redo. I attempted to assemble by myself and quickly realized that’s going to take longer – so I got help. It goes much smoother with two people. When I got to the upper dome build last night there were a couple of end rod hooks that had rotated around a bit after the last disassembly and that threw me as I did not know if it was assembled correctly until I rotated the black end hooks and retightened them as they were loose.

A couple of notes on the assembly of the lower dome rotating ring that is put together with the ‘T’ parts. It definitely helps to take a file and chamfer the ends of the ‘T’ going into the curved tubes as this keeps them from digging in when they are assembled especially as the ring progresses to the final stage. A note about the instructions – the lower dome round should be made round and level with the supplied string / level before you build the movable lower dome ring. The lower dome ring wants to assemble in a circle while the lower dome round may be egg shaped or oval until made round with the string and then leveled. It’s much easier to assemble the moving round lower dome member if the lower portion of the dome is already rounded. On my first assembly the uprights of the ‘Ts’ hit the inside of the channels quite severely when rotating the upper dome. The consequence was that I needed to get a running start on the upper dome in order to make it past the channels. The channels inside edges were quite sharp and with both the channels and ‘T’ parts made from aluminum they were galling against each other. The channel was cutting a groove in the ‘T’ uprights. I filed smooth all the inside edges that came in contact with the ‘T’ and then added a bit of grease to the channel edge that would contact the ‘T’. That seemed to solve it nicely as the movement is much improved. One nice thing about the design is that all the “T” uprights do not enter the channels at once but perhaps only two of them such that while rotating the dome only two upright ‘T’s need drag through the channels at once. Seems as though on my AstroGazer if the rotating lower dome round were an inch larger in diameter the ‘T’s would rotate in the center of the channel and not hit the inside edges.

My wife noticed that the pop rivets to hold in the Velcro strap that wraps around the PVC diagonals (for storage) on the uprights had a sharp nub that stuck through and up against the inside of the fabric on the lower round. This will worry a hole through it if not corrected. I checked and a couple of the pop rivet centers were flush and OK. Quick solution last night was to wrap the Velcro strap around the pole and rivet location to protect the fabric. Long term solution is to file this nub down. It is caused by the pull through stud of the pop rivet not coming off cleanly sometimes.

On to actual use of the 18 inch inside the dome. Well it fits quite nicely within the dome for starters albeit if exactly centered there is only about .25 inch of clearance between the UTA and the lower dome all around when at a low altitude. I can’t get it at exact center and I doubt anybody else could so I cheat the scope to the west while viewing most of the upcoming objects in the east giving me about 3 inches clearance to the dome in that direction whilst the scope altitude is at 30 degrees. Higher than 40 degrees and there is no problem. I did view a few southern DSO’s at 28 degrees altitude and the lower round of the dome covered the UTA by about 40 percent so I was not using full aperture of the scope. It worked out OK, the inside of the lower round was so close to the scope it acted as a mask and not as a roof top that might clip ones view. I did have to slide back the scope once as the SC muscled the scope into the dome at one of the most southern DSO’s. I was able to slide the scope back as it sits on a small granite slab – on the bare ground I would not have been able to do this. Careful planning is required to get the scope to clear the dome in the direction that you will be viewing if going less than 40 degree altitude.

Somehow the scope was out of collimation and I needed to get to the secondary. The only way to do this was to be between the inside wall of the dome and the UTA. I had to squeeze in there and work in the tight space for this standing on tip toes to get enough room. Raising the altitude up to about 55 degrees or so was needed. It was doable but tight.

The upper shelf worked great as I had all my sketching paraphernalia and eyepieces on top of it. Very stable and a highly recommended accessory. I thought about drilling holes for all the eyepieces but decided against it after usage last night as the table did not get knocked into once. Lots of room between the walls and scope sans where the UTA was if at a low altitude. Only negative last night was I had the table oriented such that the UTA hit it when trying to align on Polaris. At a 60 degree altitude I had no trouble walking around the entire scope. I had one of those small ceramic heaters in there with me last night and it raised the temp inside the dome 8 degrees above ambient w/o adversely affecting seeing. Outside temp was 25degrees and inside was 32 degrees.

I highly recommend the AstroGazer to anyone considering a purchase especially at the $1200 price point if they can keep it there.

Thanks, Dean Herring

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18 inch Obsession w/AN and SC
TeleVue TV101
CromixSun Solar instrument
Coronado PST and Solarmax 40