Matt wrote:
I am not qualified to discuss the design or theoretical quality of these
eyepieces. I don't own any so I can't comment on their real merits .
I *can* comment on the merits of a claim made by a vendor when the odds are
1 in millions and things sound like an excuse. See, I'm trying to separate
the vendor's attitude from the eyepiece design . No comment on the design,
an F for the attitude . Shipping out of spec parts without testing, most
likely not only to S&T , then trying to obfuscate , and generally having a
defiant attitude doesn't exactly compel more people to buy from him .

I think you are being a tad harsh, given that the "excuse" was posted by
TMB only to a (Yahoo?) mailing list, and that TMB is not exactly well
known for shoddy quality assurance. But that's just my opinion.

I think it is quite likely that TMB foolishly decided to ship the eyepieces
without at least looking at them first, thinking (rightly) that it was the
more conscientious thing to do, and also thinking (wrongly, I believe) that
quality assurance on the production was better than it was.

The consequent excuse is designed, I also think, not to save face for TMB
himself. But this is all just speculation on my part. I haven't joined
the Yahoo group yet.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt