My God - I didnt realise - Im shocked

DaithiSurfer

I was just checking the price of telescopes.
I knew astronomy ireland were expensive but i was shocked at exactly HOW MUCH MORE expensive.

Check this link. Towards the bottom for telescope price comparisons.

http://www.irishastronomy.com/

Is there any other supplier of quality telescopes in ireland.

jArgHA

hi daithi,

refer to this former thread for information on alternative irish dealers, in particular look at albertw's 2nd post in the thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=126375

slán,
jAH

Beëlzebooze

ridiculous init? some of the prices are blatantly doubled..... I wonder how they can justify that...

DaithiSurfer

Well i guess if people trust them and dont look elsewhere (and the majority of their members do trust them) then they'll sell themm at that price.
Kind of an abuse of trust though

halenger

I know it's difficult to do and to figure out but we should not blame Astronomy Ireland. Hold on hold on!!! No need to string the abuse back yet.

The shop is not owned by Astronomy Ireland so Astronomy Ireland does not really have anything to do with it. In fact it has nothing to do with it. If it had I would have instantly said bring the prices down, now, when I was on the committee.

The shop is owned by a company called Astronomy & Space Ltd.

Both are very much intertwined at the moment and that wont change as long as owner of shop is chairman of Astronomy Ireland.

Ya get me?

DaithiSurfer

Surely this is a conflict of interest and grounds for dismissal as chairman of the club.
If i owned a company and used a club (which is supposed to be for its members and not a vehicle to rip them off via another company) i'm sure i could see very well for myself that i should step down as chairman.

jhonan

Originally posted by DaithiSurfer
Surely this is a conflict of interest and grounds for dismissal as chairman of the club.

Well, most real clubs have an AGM and a voting process which would mean the committee and chairman are voted in/out as the members see fit. A&S Ltd./AI, however, does not have such a system in place.

If i owned a company and used a club (which is supposed to be for its members and not a vehicle to rip them off via another company) i'm sure i could see very well for myself that i should step down as chairman.

Yes, that would make sense, wouldn't it?.....

John.

halenger

Grounds for dismissal?

There's no constitution so there's ground for nothing...

Agar

Halenger wrote:

There's no constitution so there's ground for nothing...

And the really sad thing is that you see nothing wrong with that. I've been watching this thread with interest. People seem to be finally waking up to some of the things that are seriously wrong with Astronomy IN Ireland. I can see 2004 bringing great changes for us:D

Halenger, I thought you had quit as moderator of this forum? Didn't you sign off in a huff from this forum, or was that the irishastronomy.com bulletin board, or was it both?

Tell me, how does one become listed as a contributor to Astronomy & Space magazine? You are one, as is Sir Patrick Moore, yet I've penned more for that magazine than either of you?

How can Astronomy Ireland claim in a flyer that it is the publisher of Astronomy & Space magazine when the magazine clearly states that it is published by Astronomy & Space Ltd? Your club, or society, as you use both interchangeably, is therefore lying to it's members. All 8,000 of them.:dunno:

Happy New Year everyone!

DaithiSurfer

Does anyone know any journalists or the like who could write an expose on Astronomy Ireland / Space and this conflict of interest and also a few other goings on there that i have heard of from friends who worked for them..
I for one wold be very interested in someone digging deeper into the dealings there.

GuanYin

Lads, tone down the confrontational posts please, if you want to make accusations, please make sure they are founded and not just personality clashes.

Syke

Agar

Hi Syke, nice to make your acquaintance. I understand you're a moderator of this forum. On that very issue, can you remind us of who the moderators are? I definitely recall Halengar asking to be removed as moderator, which I think is fair enough as there is a definite conflict of interests there. His name still appears in lights though. Is Halengar still a moderator?

Daithi; I think you're over-reacting a little bit there. It's easy to make a knee-jerk reaction and get really stewed with Astronomy Ireland (I've done it LOADS of times), but you've got to step back and look at things. Astronomy Ireland, and Astronomy & Space Ltd, are doing nothing which is illegal or legally wrong. They are doing things which are morally wrong. For example, in the editorial to the January issue of A&S magazine David Moore, Chairman of AI, editor of A&S mag and director of A&S Ltd, gives his reasons why "we" set up "our astronomy shop". Most people understand the "we" and the "our" to mean Astronomy Ireland ( the national astronomy club, allegedly), whereas it does in fact refer to Astronomy & Space Ltd as Astronomy Ireland has nothing to do with the shop. This was revealed to us all here on a previous incarnation of this forum by Halengar and in an email from david Moore to another poster to this forum.

Even on this thread Halengar has told us that the prices charged in the shop are nothing to do with AI. Legally they are pure and pristine, to the best of my knowledge, but morally they are living in one large grey area.

Besides, David Moore is the mouth of Astronomy for members of the Irish media. Why would they bite the hand that feeds them?

GuanYin

You will find the mods listed atthe top of the forum thread list on the left hand side of any forum. here for instance.

In this case it is redshift, halenger and I.

I'm the mod of the science forums section, of which astronomy/space is one and on the whole I have absolutely nothing to do with any of the organisations. I am interested in the area mind, and I read every post.

I'm saying this, because I want it to be perfectly clear that what I'm saying is coming from me.

There was a time when a large amount of finger pointing, trolling, slander and muppetry took place on this board. A rather strict charter was installed as a result. Now of late this has been eased up on, mainly at the request and arguements made by yourself and another forum regular, but it doesn'tmean that we are asking for a reversion back to the previous styule of posting.

My take on this is simple. So long as Astronomy Ireland aren't doing anything illegal (which they aren't) its a very simple choice on your part to be involved with them or not. If you feel justififed in pointing out some immorality, post about it and back up yor claims with fact and evidence. If you feel the pluses of being part of astronomy Ireland outweigh the negatives, stay a part and still, if you must, make your grieviences known.

I think on the whole, I and most people would prefer if there was more astronomy/space discussions and less politics posted here.

But either way, prolonged bitching sessions or attacks on other members of the community for their involvement will not be tolerated. The point has been made on the price indifferences with AI and I'll leave this thread open longer for any other on-topic sensible contributions. But no more sniping.

halenger

Originally posted by Agar
Halenger wrote:

There's no constitution so there's ground for nothing...

And the really sad thing is that you see nothing wrong with that.

When did I say that?? You're putting words in my mouth. In fact if you bother to think back to the old Astronomy Ireland board you'll remember that I was always EXTREMELY pro-constitution.

I'm affiliated with noone. My name appearing in the magazine may be out of forgetfulness or as a curtosey and thanks for all my work but I've not been involved in any organisation because of personal attacks that I have suffered.

I'm a moderator here still. I cannot be called biased. If you wanna call me biased do so. I really thought you had gotten over your attacks on me but this is what I feared would come right back thus my very seldom posting here. I left irishastronomy.com again because of personal attacks.

Disappointed, very disappointed.

If you've a problem with AI/A&S talk to them. I am neither so leave me the hell out of it.

Yoda

Personalities and politics notwithstanding, I would simply say that given those price differences, nothing would convince me to buy a telescope from the Irish supplier, because those prices are not competitive.

It would seem to me that if people were simply to make this clear to the supplier in question that would encourage the supplier to rethink the pricing structure.

The bit at the bottom "Due to dealership restrictions, it may not be possible for UK suppliers to supply certain telescope brands to Irish customers, or vice versa." goes against EU free trade regulations, it would seem to me.

I wonder what some of these devices cost in Germany.

halenger

The thing about UK suppliers not supplying to Irish people is something to do with Celestron I think.

They give certain regions to certain suppliers. So Hinds is the UK distributor and A&S is the Irish distributor.

Not sure if that violates EU law. I wouldn't know but I wouldn't think so cause it's upto Celestron who to appoint to sell them in what regions.

If you really want a scope from Hinds go over to his shop personally and buy it. That works as far as I know. They just wont SHIP to Ireland.

Agar

That's a very good point Halengar about going over to Hinds and physically buying it. We have discussed this previously here, and it has been pointed out that it is actully cheaper to travel to Hinds and buy a Nexstar 11" GPS and bring it back. You'll still save about 2,000 Euro over the Astronomy & Space Ltd shop.

There is an alternative however. Andy McCrea deals in Celestron and he's from Northern Ireland. He'll happily get any scope from Celestron and meet you half way with the scope. So you can get cheap Celestron in the RoI and not have to pay the heavy prices charged by Astronomy & Space Ltd. Not sure what his address is but I can look it up for anyone who is interested.

I saw in the Golden Pages that the Astronomy & Space Ltd shop is listed as the Astronomy Ireland shop. Isn't that false or misleading advertising?

halenger

I dunno or care really.

If you're that bothered by it write to AI/A&S/Golden Pages and make your point.

I'm sure someone's gonna reply, eventually... If they have to.

Good luck though!


Then again it's cheaper still to fly to America, have a nice holiday and buy a scope there.

I've noticed that Hind's prices are simply the dollar prices with a "£" symbol before them. That's a huge amount of money. Enough for a holiday etc and probably to ship it back (not by USPS though unless you want a motherload of customs charges).

albertw

Originally posted by Agar Andy McCrea deals in Celestron and he's from Northern Ireland. ...Not sure what his address is but I can look it up for anyone who is interested.

That would be North Down Telescopes at http://www.mccreaa.freeserve.co.uk/

In the US, OPT, www.optcorp.com will now ship Celestron to Ireland.

Anyone travelling down to the Connaught Star Party on Jan 24th? Details at http://homepage.tinet.ie/~galwayastronomyclub/ (and yes I mailed A&S the details of this months ago and gave them a contact email to clarify the details before publishing if they wanted - doubt they published or mentioned it in their email alerts)

Speaking of email alerts, for anyone who would rather have a roughly weekly email sent to them about the various astronomical going on rather than reading boards like this or irishastronomy.org drop over to http://star.arm.ac.uk/nibulletin and send Terry Mosely a mail. I corosspost these on the irishastronomy.org site also so you can read them there also if you perfer reading emails on bulettin boards!

Cheers,
~Al

halenger

Sky & Telescope also do a fairly good one for Astronomical News etc...

albertw

Originally posted by halenger
Sky & Telescope also do a fairly good one for Astronomical News etc...

Its would only be appropriate to send details of a national event to papers and magazines in Ireland, and since this is the star parties first year its not yet an international event. Whirlpool being an international event on the other hand gets mentioned in S&T and Astronomy Now. I mentioned A&S in my last post as they ask for details of such events, and despite them been sent the details and contact information to clarify before publication they don't seem to publish anything - I was trying to preempt the `why do A&S never publish details of other events? Because we never get sent the details` discussion.

Cheers,
~Al

edited to be a bit politer ;-)

halenger

You've completely taken me up ENTIRELY wrong.

As I have stated I've nothing to do with A&S so take your gripe up with them. Don't take it out on me.


Sky & Telescope do a good e-mail on what's gone on Astronomically during the week.

That's all I said. I should make a new account just to post on Astronomy/Space it seems. I'm forever going to be bundled along with anything AI/A&S. Extremely irritating.

GuanYin

This is the last time I'm going to ask people to keep it polite and non-personal in-forum.

albertw

Originally posted by halenger
You've completely taken me up ENTIRELY wrong.
As I have stated I've nothing to do with A&S so take your gripe up with them. Don't take it out on me.

Eh... I just stated why it probably wont be in S&T.

Please dont take every comment that someone makes about A&S as a personal attack on you!

Cheers,
~Al

halenger

I never said it would.

I only suggested S&T as a good e-mail for astronomical news.

Not events, news.

halenger

Lets just drop this anyhow.

I'm quite honestly sick of hearing about A&S/AI. I've nothing against them but I need a break from that whole saga!

If I jumped to conclusions then my bad.

GuanYin

I agree

thread locked.