From: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: Visit to AstroPhysics
Reply-To: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu
Organization: School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 06:47:08 GMT

	A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to visit AstroPhysics in
Rockford, Illinois. I wanted to see what their "Traveler" refractor
was like before committing to buying one.

	AstroPhysics is a SMALL outfit. They are in a small building in
a near-empty industrial park well NorthEast of "downtown" Rockford. There
were only a handful of cars in their parking lot. They have a sort of
little showroom for visitors. I thought maybe the scopes there were special
showroom pieces, but no; they were mostly scopes waiting for the arrival of
some last mount piece or some such part they didn't have on hand themselves.
(I guess they don't want to have to many scopes just sitting there when they
could be sold and being used!)

	They took great pride in quality. Each scope was _really_ hand made,
meaning that everybody knew the name of the person each scope was being made
for and where it was being shipped! (I believe they said half their scopes
are shipped overseas.)

	Ask to see their big poster-size blowup of the S+T 1991 eclipse cover
in a side room. They took that photo themselves using a Traveler. It shows
much more detail than the S+T cover; it's almost worth going to see them just
for that.

	They said they may have to drop the Davis and Sanford tripods,
because the supplier is just too flakey and slow in filling their orders.
(The Altazimuth head won't mount on a D+S tripod either.)

	The business manager said people often work late and on weekends
there, so if you needed questions answered you can try calling them anytime.

	I had several questions about the Traveler which they were able
to answer:

1) Just how bad IS the eye relief with a 4.8mm Nagler?

	Not WONDERFUL, but tolerable. My eyelashes brushed the eyepiece a
bit annoyingly if I wanted to get the entire range of field, but it was OK.
The business manager (the lady who appears in their propaganda photos
next to all the scopes) pointed out "you can always go to a higher power,
but you can't always go to a lower power. With our traveler refractor
you can get the entire double cluster in the field of view, for example;
you just can't do that with a longer focal length scope. Of course
you might want to make this a second scope, but it has its advantages."


2) What eyepiece did they recommend for the lowest power?

	They said get a 35mm Panoptic, not a 55mm Plossl. They 35mm
Panoptic had a sharp view all the way to the edge of the field.


3) How close could you focus?

	I'd also like to occasionally use the scope for birdwatching, so
I was interested in how close you could focus. Their focusing drawtube
comes out a LOOOONNNG way; I could focus up to about 25 feet.


4) How portable is it?

	It seems it should be quite portable. When you see the AstroPhysics
in their propaganda it doesn't look that small, but that's because the tube
in the photo is extended at the end for use. The extension pushes back about
4 inches for storage and makes the scope REALLY short.

	In general I was quite impressed with the scope, and the outfit.
Definitely a small, top-quality type of place. Everyone there seemed really
enthusiastic about making THEIR scopes THE BEST.

	Fortunately they said they have no plans to raise prices on the
Traveler in the near future.

     /\    /\    /\/\/\/\/\/\/\.-.-.-.-.......___________
    /  \  /  \  /Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, Honolulu\/\/\.-.-....__
___/    \/    \/Joe Dellinger, Internet: joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu\/\.-.__
____________________________________________________
Objectivity is not an unobtainable emptying of mind |
but a willingness to abandon a set of preferences   |----> Stephen J. Gould
when the world seems to work in a contrary way.     |
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