Galileoscope

HelloWell, I would call the refractor kit a "Saturnscope" (this was also the design aim) as it has not much to do anymore with what was available at that time and its capabilities go far beyond anything Galileo or others could observe with their sopes at that time. IMO the only link to Galileo is that it get produced for the IYA 2009 that is in honor of Galileo and others.They say on:https://www.galileoscope.org/"Galileoscopes are in production and will begin to reach customers is June 2009."and:https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/content/galileoscope-production/"Our best estimate of when Galileoscopes will begin arriving in customers' hands is mid-June."So some might have already arrived. But then they probably might have changed these texts.I tried to add one to the shopping cart, but its doesn't seem to work anymore.Shipping one over the big pond is relative expensive and there are AFAIK no redistributors in Europe.CSWolfgang

I ordered 6 in February for some neighbor kids. They charged my card right away. Ihave yet to see them. Jeff

The latest news is that all orders placed Feb-May should be received by the end of July. Fingers crossed...

I placed my order the first week of March, but have heard and seen nothing yet. Does anyone know how they are shipped, UPS, Fex EX or USPS?

I can't imagine it will be too much longer - I placed an order for two scopes on March 31st, both finally came in about a week ago.

Still no scopes here. How were they shipped?

I also ordered in February and haven't seen them. Emailed and got a reminder about the ship date in late April, postponed our GScope program to late May and had to postpone again to the beginning of the school year.Bummer,Alice

Hi Alice, While it is encouraging to see someone got a couple scopes, I am concerned that the deal was that they would be shipped in order of when the order was placed. Your order was even before mine (5 March). But then the guy that received his placed an order nearly a month after that. I am also concerned as I used PayPal; and my CC was charged immediately and I received no order notification. It is really a shame that the scopes have not come. Jupiter has an interesting spot that looks like it might be some kind of new impact. This might easily be seen with the scopes. What a missed thrill for folks. Jeff

Just to note- My Galileoscope order was placed Jun 11, 2009. They have not come yet but they did send me a confirmation email and my account was billed. Looks like it will be a long wait. So no observations yet :-( , I hear their very cool and are larger than they look on the web page. Hope this helps.~~~ PJ aka Spaceblanket

My order of six scopes just arrived. I placed my order on 5 March. They were shipped by USPS and came from Wisconsin. Units are made in China. Jeff

I have assemble two scopes and have some tips to pass on. In fact I suggest others post any tips they have for assembly and use of the scope. First, for $15 the scope is an excellent buy. Second, the directions are less than crystal clear and definitely adult supervision is required. And the adult supervision my be straining a bit. Third, the parts list says 2 O-rings. There are 4 supplied, 2 small and 2 large. It appears you can use either set. The smaller set will provide a tighter fit. But why the choice. No information. There is a white foam package with the main objective lens. See attachment (white foam package with 6 eyepiece lens is bottom left and O-rings bottom right. What is not at first obvious is there are also 6 smaller lens as part of the package. These smaller lens are for the eyepieces. The each arrangement of the small lenses (orientation) is not obvious. I tested the first scope out front during daylight. The focusing is not easy. Twisting the tube while sliding helps. The 25X power seems to work fine. I could not focus the higher powers.I may not have the lens correct. I could not get the 18X to focus either. Note:It's 114 out front in the shade so extensive testing was not done. Tonight most of the week looks stormy so it may be a few days before night sky testing can be done. There are three powers, 18X, 25X and 50X. The 18X and 25X use one of the two eyepieces. The 50 power uses them together with an additional tube to act as a Barlows lens. The telescope will attach to a tripod for easier use. I'd be interested in hearing other people's experience witht he scope and other tips, ideas, comments and questions. Jeff

I've found a couple things that can help with using the Galileoscope: The first is to use a good eyepiece in lieu of the supplied eyepiece assembly. I found that a quality eyepiece with long eye-relief (and a wide field of view) greatly improved my ability to use this scope. It mostly just comes down to viwing through the scope comfortably, which long eye-relief tends to help with. Of course this is really only useful for people who already have eyepieces - there's not much sense in buying a $100+ eyepiece for a $15 scope! The other thing that helped me use the scope (in a hand-held fashion) was to grip the eyepiece assembly firmly while holding the scope to my eye, and then reach focus by -pushing- the rest of the optical tube away from my face, slightly twisting the tube to help control the speed. This allowed me to keep the eyepiece in front of my eye which in turn helped me to stay on target.

Thanks for the tips about the eyepieces. While I found the main 25X eyepiece fairly good, I could not get the 18X or 50X assemblies to focus. I have yet to have a clear night to see any stars, planets or moon, but have experimented with distant terrestrial objects. Has anyone had success with the the supplied eyepieces for other than the 25X?

Hi Jeff- I too have found the instructions that came with the Galileoscope rather opaque. At their website, they provide a more detailed set of instructions which helped me immensely. It also clears up the matter of the O-rings: the large pair goes on the Scope and the smaller ones go on the focusing tube. I have found that the tube slides in and out a little easier once that is done (still, like Brian says, twisting the tube helps).

I felt bad. After blathering on about not getting mine Icame home from our star party and there they were! I now have my GScopes just in time for me to leave for Chicago! Alice

Okay, so Icaved and just put one together with the kids..... I have a Girl Scout troop that will be putting together the first public scope, when I get back from Chicago, and Ihave already decided to get some white gloves for them to use while building the eyepiece! You can usually find some cheap ones at the drug store in the beauty supply aisle. It will just make putting together a clean, smudge free eyepiece even easier. Food service or medical gloves might work just as well. Also, I laid a lint free cloth down so my kids could test the shape of the small eyepiece lenses and that helped as well. We are planning on running the GScope activity AFTERthe kids go through the "Mirrors and Glass" kit from the Night Sky Network. The kit has larger lenses they can touch and the light bench activities really help them understand how the lenses work together. Check around with your local astronomy clubs and see if any of them have the kit....member clubs got them free from the Night Sky Network. We can compare more notes in Chicago! Alice

Hello Looks like as the first ones also arrived here in Germany: http://twitpic.com/dbzre CS WR

I used a Galileoscope last night at a presentation for the Civil Air Patrol and I have some suggestions. If you are going to use one scope as a demonstrations scope; to open, build, rebuild, etc then it might be helpful to mark one side as "down" and on that side only semi-secure the main objective and eyepiece lenses with a little bit of double sided tape or blue-tak and glue the nut in place. This way the student/visitors can see the inside workings and actually take the piece out and put them back together. When you open up the scope again (like a clamshell) then everything sticks in its proper place and there is less of a worry about the lenses falling out. We kept a folded towel under the telescope anyway... just in case. A completed scope was set up and ready to go on a tripod for looking at the stars...or in our case because of the rain we looked at the different airport lights. When they were done with that we put a piece of diffraction grating at the eyepiece and had a completely different experience with our Galileoscope! Alice justafew