"JT" wrote in message
...
Reading the Yahoo Celestron mailing lists, I get the idea that
Celestron is today shipping product of such low quality that if the
customer community wasn't a bunch of zealot/nerds they'd be out of
business.

Is anyone in the know (e.g. a Celestron insider willing to comment
with product-return facts) able to step up with numbers to refute
those strong claims?

I think I'm speaking mostly of their new (?) relatively low-cost line
of products similar to the C8-SGT. I've got one of them on order, and
am thinking about canceling the order because of all the chatter.

Celestron offers a limited warranty, of course, but requires the
customer to pay shipping both ways to correct their problems, has
(reportedly) hard-to-reach support, and there are a number of reports
of the replacement being worse than the original. At $150 RT for
shipping (perhaps less if you don't have to return the whole mess)
that can get pretty old right away.

A lot of problems are pita issues like missing parts, alignment
indicaters way off, important screws loose, etc. that can be replaced
or repaired by a technically savvy and willing customer. But there's
plenty of chatter about serious problems, especially with the
electronics.

I note that no one complains about the optical quality, but that may
simply be more difficult to assess. If Celestron's lack of concern in
the other areas is being correctly described, it would be hard to
imagine they were doing a better job with the OTA.

The mailing-list zealot team has at least a few very verbal defenders
who excuse all this mess as perfectly acceptable for such a product.
Personally, I think it's completely inexcusable. But I'd really be
thrilled if the outcome of this posting is some hard facts...
This is where buying from a local dealer wins. These sorts of problems are
easily dealt with by them, rather than dealing direct with Celestron. Mail
order on this sort of item, is popular, because of the price being offered
by some companies, but you wouldn't buy a car, without a PDI inspection from
a dealer, and really should expect to do the same for a scope...
Most of the basic 'missing screw' type issues, are unfortunately explicable
by the transport itself.
There are a couple of possibly software/hardware issues, which have been
leading to a lot of posts on the groups (these are probably what you are
seeing). The latest firmware, was meant to cure one problem, but may have
introduced another. This problem is changing with software versions (there
are versions that sacrifice some of the newer features, and work fine). The
other problem, has not yet had the case 'proven' as to whether it is
software of hardware (the guide lockup). This seems to affect some users
badly, and others not at all, yet does not move with the hardware, possibly
suggesting it is related to the enviroment (power, and the nature of
external connections). Until the actual 'cause' of the problem can be
identified, finding a fix will be very difficult (some users are currently
trying to track down the 'root cause'). For most users though, this problem
won't even appear. The code for the last year, has been good enough, that
you can expect the scope to reliably aim at allmost any object, and track it
for hours. I have taken guided images, with single exposures running over
300 minutes, with peak tracking errors below 0.4 pixels, and RMS below 0.25.
This is twice as good as I ever managed on an LX200...
At the moment, I own two Celestron scopes, and two Meade scopes (plus a
couple of other makes). At present, I would not buy another Meade.

Best Wishes