Astronomy close-out

[johnridley]

I've sold every bit of astronomy equipment that I own other than the telescope itself, and I've dropped the price on that to $2000, which is honestly less than I paid for the parts. If it doesn't go at that price, I may start to part it out. The mirror itself ran $1600 10 years ago and there's a 4 month backorder time, so if anyone is in the market for that mirror it should go, especially if I throw in the mirror cell for free - it's an 18 point stainless steel flotation cell that I built myself.

What it comes down to is, I feel like I've seen all the easy and medium stuff like 80 times already, and the size of scope that I have kind of calls for looking for faint stuff, and I'm kind of sick of searching for faint stuff, especially as the light pollution here at home gets steadily worse. And even when I find it, it's not particularly inspiring, and I've proven to myself that I can find anything that's findable in these skies, so there's not any thrill left in that either.

Interestingly enough, when I admitted all this to my friend at work who I've thought of as a real astronomy hard-core, he said he feels exactly the same way. He's seen it all and the effort isn't worth the payoff anymore, and he's about ready to sell all his stuff too.

I've decided to clear everything out, give it a few months or a year or two, and see how my feelings go. Right now I think that even if I do get back in, a simple 4.5 or 6" reflector with a modest $250 or so set of matched, parfocal eyepieces would be just fine. Really I like looking at planets and the moon as well as anything, and I've gotten nice views out of a $200, 4.5" "beginner's" dob with simple, inexpensive eyepieces. I think for < $500 I can get a scope and eyepieces that will give me just as much enjoyment, and have a scope I can carry under one arm.

Comments

[norfacoflandra.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of hobbies like that - too bad there isn't a going "used market" so people can have the experience and not waste perfectly good equipment by having it gather dust. You're better than I am - admitting I no longer really do something is difficult for me when it comes to getting rid of things that are sitting around.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Luckily there's an incredibly good venue for selling used astronomy equipment - astromart.com. It used to be free but now costs $12/year, but it's a bargain. Once signed up there's no further cost to list as much as you want, and it's very common to place things up there and sell them within minutes if you hit the right price point. And you can just relist at a lower price if it doesn't go in a few days, no harm there.

It's a lot less hassle than eBay, and I have never heard of anyone getting scammed there; I have no problem taking personal checks from people there, though almost all prefer to use PayPal so they can get their stuff faster.

I'm actually in the end stages of a process of simplification that I began about 2 years ago. I've gotten increasingly cruel to myself regarding what I'll ever use again.

I knew I was getting there when I got to the point where I was able to take a binder with 500 discs in it, each of which had at least an hour's worth of work gathering videos, and toss it in the "give away, I'll never get to it" pile.

At first I thought I'd sell the scope and get another of equal value but a little more transportable. Now I think I'd rather have a little bitty inexpensive thing, and it may very well be that I never pick it up again.