so called new approach to design doublet APOs. ;>)

To Tom Davis and the rest...

It was my understanding that Burgess Optical and various folks with connections
to BO were going to avoid commenting on products that were not yet available to
the public.

In the past this has caused Burgess Optics and others a large amount of grief
including yours truly. I was suckered in to the predessor to this scope, the
102F6 nearly 2 years ago by glowing reports of Prototype performance and
assurances of Burgess Optics customer care and quality assurance and of course
a very attractive price.

So far, this story has just been one of disappointment and disaster. (The
upside is that I did have an extra 2 inch diagonal to lend to Howard Lester to
use with his Orion ED80.)

The downside is that I have been on a roller coaster of ups and down, promises
followed by failure, after all my scope was supposed to be shipped within a
month of the order date which was in March of 2003. What I ended up with was
a scope 10 months later that even by my lax standards was unusable. Now
nearly a year later, again I have been hopeful numerous times, still nothing...

I hope that Burgess Optical is able to pull this one off.

But at the same time, I hope that no one here mistakes a glowing review of a
Proto-type as an indication that soon a similar scope will available to the
general public.

It maybe that indeed this time the product will arrive on schedule and be of
the quality imagined.

But if you want to avoid getting into the same frustrating situation I have
been in for the last 20 months, then I suggest caution is wisest course of
action. (The folks whom I feel sorry for though are those who bought the 102F6
as their first scope and waited for those many months under the impression that
they were actually getting a scope.)

If the production scopes are what Tom's prototype seemed to be then there will
be more and enough for everyone.

If you want to read more, I suggest looking over the Burgess Optical forum on
Astromart. Tom, myself, Roland and many others have posted there on a regular
basis. Lots of excitement and flames but lots of good solid meat as well.

As they say, let the buyer beware, just don't say I didn't warn you.....

Best wishes, clear skies and I will say I am pretty happy with my color free
130mm F5 scope.... Magicians work wonders with mirrors....

jon

"Jon Isaacs" wrote in message
...
To Tom Davis and the rest...

It was my understanding that Burgess Optical and various folks with
connections
to BO were going to avoid commenting on products that were not yet
available to
the public.
Jon,

I am extremely sorry I got involved with this. I did not agree to hold
back on this scope, but the semi-apo. How many times must I say
this. The objective in this scope IS NOT A PROTOTYPE. It is
production. The lens cell on the scope I have is the prototype, not
the objective. Bill had them test the first five scopes on an
interferometer.
All 5 passed the test with flying colors, and were essentially carbon
copies of each other. The problem in August was not theirs, but one
of the old, wrong focal length rear element being reused from an old,
damaged objective. This occurred in the assembly at William Optics.
They were not aware of the focal length change from 600mm to 700mm.

Additionally, the scope has gone to full scale production. It is past the
test stage. Bill asked me to post, and I saw no reason to hold back.
I will be doing no more reviews of Burgess products. I do not have the
patience to deal with the accusations against me. I did nothing wrong here.
I spoke accurately and truthfully about this scope. The scope will come
with a full warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee. If this is not
sufficient, I encourage anyone with doubts to pass on it.

Thanks, Tom Davis

And this is all going to get fixed during out lifetimes???

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272
"Tom Davis" wrote in message
...

"Jon Isaacs" wrote in message
...
To Tom Davis and the rest...

It was my understanding that Burgess Optical and various folks with
connections
to BO were going to avoid commenting on products that were not yet
available to
the public.
Jon,

I am extremely sorry I got involved with this. I did not agree to hold
back on this scope, but the semi-apo. How many times must I say
this. The objective in this scope IS NOT A PROTOTYPE. It is
production. The lens cell on the scope I have is the prototype, not
the objective. Bill had them test the first five scopes on an
interferometer.
All 5 passed the test with flying colors, and were essentially carbon
copies of each other. The problem in August was not theirs, but one
of the old, wrong focal length rear element being reused from an old,
damaged objective. This occurred in the assembly at William Optics.
They were not aware of the focal length change from 600mm to 700mm.

Additionally, the scope has gone to full scale production. It is past
the
test stage. Bill asked me to post, and I saw no reason to hold back.
I will be doing no more reviews of Burgess products. I do not have the
patience to deal with the accusations against me. I did nothing wrong
here.
I spoke accurately and truthfully about this scope. The scope will
come
with a full warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee. If this is not
sufficient, I encourage anyone with doubts to pass on it.

Thanks, Tom Davis

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:WKaod.125491$cJ3.79076@fed1read06...
And this is all going to get fixed during out lifetimes???

Jan,

There is nothing to fix. Five scopes passed an interferometer test. What
more do you want? This scope has no relationship to the Burgess 1026.
The 1026 could not be fixed, because every one of the objectives sold
were substandard, even the stopped down prototype. First thing I did
with this scope was pull the rear baffle and test for vignetting afterwards.
None. The interferometer test was done with no baffles involved. The
1026s were not tested in anything approaching this way. Bill has learned
much about doing QA on scopes. The manufacturer of the lenses is
also doing QA. None of the lenses they provided Bill were substandard,
even the one that Bill's telescope tube manufacturer broke the front
element on. All that happened was a mistake by William Optics in
assembling the objective on this tube. This was not done in their
plant, and this can't happen again as every objective from that point
forward is being assembled, collimated, and tested in the optical plant.

Just to make this point crystal clear again, the 1026 had the objectives
made by another optical manufacturer, with nowhere near the expertise,
equipment, or quality of optical materials as the 92 fluorite manufacturer.
I can attest to the quality of what I have and any statements that the
following shipping scopes will be substandard is nothing more than
an unsubstantiated accusation. So far, the manufacturer has been
five for five, or batted 1.000. Not even one 1026 passed muster to
a degree Bill was satisfied with. Since the scopes have gone to production,
the only way someone like yourself will be satisfied is if the entire
production batch turns out OK, but then will not the statements be
made that they were good because they were the first batch? If
China can produce 80ED and 100ED scopes that prople are happy
with, just maybe they can do this scope as well. As with any product,
people will need to buy it for this to be known. But what I get here is
don't even discuss the performance of the first scope.

In a word, it already has been fixed. I have the proof in my hands.
If anyone gets a bad scope, they will have a return option, or a repair
option. If that is not good enough, might be best to not consider one.

Thanks, Tom Davis

Doesn't matter at all to me personally.

I have no stake in it. But I have been hearing from folks for some time
about scopes ordered and not received. And about issues that have
surfaced that are being fixed (but haven't been fixed yet, or at least
their scopes have not been delivered yet...).

Not something you're responsible for in any way. You just peeled the scab
off, so to speak...

I simply wondered out loud when these issues might realistically end. Not
an issue for me personally. But that may not be the case for others...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272

"Tom Davis" wrote in message
om...

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:WKaod.125491$cJ3.79076@fed1read06...
And this is all going to get fixed during out lifetimes???

Jan,

There is nothing to fix. Five scopes passed an interferometer test.
What
more do you want? This scope has no relationship to the Burgess 1026.
The 1026 could not be fixed, because every one of the objectives sold
were substandard, even the stopped down prototype. First thing I did
with this scope was pull the rear baffle and test for vignetting
afterwards.
None. The interferometer test was done with no baffles involved. The
1026s were not tested in anything approaching this way. Bill has
learned
much about doing QA on scopes. The manufacturer of the lenses is
also doing QA. None of the lenses they provided Bill were substandard,
even the one that Bill's telescope tube manufacturer broke the front
element on. All that happened was a mistake by William Optics in
assembling the objective on this tube. This was not done in their
plant, and this can't happen again as every objective from that point
forward is being assembled, collimated, and tested in the optical plant.

Just to make this point crystal clear again, the 1026 had the
objectives
made by another optical manufacturer, with nowhere near the expertise,
equipment, or quality of optical materials as the 92 fluorite
manufacturer.
I can attest to the quality of what I have and any statements that the
following shipping scopes will be substandard is nothing more than
an unsubstantiated accusation. So far, the manufacturer has been
five for five, or batted 1.000. Not even one 1026 passed muster to
a degree Bill was satisfied with. Since the scopes have gone to
production,
the only way someone like yourself will be satisfied is if the entire
production batch turns out OK, but then will not the statements be
made that they were good because they were the first batch? If
China can produce 80ED and 100ED scopes that prople are happy
with, just maybe they can do this scope as well. As with any product,
people will need to buy it for this to be known. But what I get here is
don't even discuss the performance of the first scope.

In a word, it already has been fixed. I have the proof in my hands.
If anyone gets a bad scope, they will have a return option, or a repair
option. If that is not good enough, might be best to not consider one.

Thanks, Tom Davis

Jan,

Several different issues. Bill had allowed pre-orders on some products in
the past that were taken away by other companies who waved the wand
of a larger order with them. This obviously hurt Bill's reputation, but
there
was not much he could do about it. Thie is one reason why he and Thomas
Back are not now talking about scopes and other products they might have
in process. The 102 Semi-Apo was already promised, so that has been
discussed, and thie scope here was promised, and since it is now in
production, Bill asked me to post a review of it.

There are always two sides to a story, though. All the 1026s were sold
at a discount as-is. Those with scopes they could not work to their
satisfaction were still offered refunds, but they could not be fixed due to
not having proper objectives to replace them with. I've had a problem with
every short-focus Synta achromat I've owned, except for a good 8 year
old orion short-tube 80 I have. Bill simply sold that quality level with
these
scopes, when he expected to sell better. At $150 for the package, it was
not at all out of line with the market price for other branded versions that
were no better. Some people are happy with theirs, others not. Bill was
not happy with them, so sold them at a discount. This is an old story,
but it has left some deep wounds with some expecting a better product.
To make a long story short, he has been on a long search since for higher
quality products overseas. This scope appears to be on hit on the search.

On the repair issue, I know I had no problem getting parts from Bill. I
needed a tube ring for my 1278, and got one in two days. I sold that
scope, and they swapped out the focuser for the next buyer who had the
focuser mis-align in shipment. They could not collimate it, so Bill took
one off the shelf, collimated it in an OTA in the shop, and shipped it to
my buyer with a return tag for the old focuser. There are horror stories
with Meade and Celestron service that would take days for us to go
through if all were posted here. Things happen.

Thanks, Tom Davis

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:GCbod.125498$cJ3.124835@fed1read06...
Doesn't matter at all to me personally.

I have no stake in it. But I have been hearing from folks for some time
about scopes ordered and not received. And about issues that have
surfaced that are being fixed (but haven't been fixed yet, or at least
their scopes have not been delivered yet...).

Not something you're responsible for in any way. You just peeled the scab
off, so to speak...

I simply wondered out loud when these issues might realistically end. Not
an issue for me personally. But that may not be the case for others...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272

"Tom Davis" wrote in message
om...

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:WKaod.125491$cJ3.79076@fed1read06...
And this is all going to get fixed during out lifetimes???

Jan,

There is nothing to fix. Five scopes passed an interferometer test.
What
more do you want? This scope has no relationship to the Burgess 1026.
The 1026 could not be fixed, because every one of the objectives sold
were substandard, even the stopped down prototype. First thing I did
with this scope was pull the rear baffle and test for vignetting
afterwards.
None. The interferometer test was done with no baffles involved. The
1026s were not tested in anything approaching this way. Bill has
learned
much about doing QA on scopes. The manufacturer of the lenses is
also doing QA. None of the lenses they provided Bill were substandard,
even the one that Bill's telescope tube manufacturer broke the front
element on. All that happened was a mistake by William Optics in
assembling the objective on this tube. This was not done in their
plant, and this can't happen again as every objective from that point
forward is being assembled, collimated, and tested in the optical plant.

Just to make this point crystal clear again, the 1026 had the
objectives
made by another optical manufacturer, with nowhere near the expertise,
equipment, or quality of optical materials as the 92 fluorite
manufacturer.
I can attest to the quality of what I have and any statements that the
following shipping scopes will be substandard is nothing more than
an unsubstantiated accusation. So far, the manufacturer has been
five for five, or batted 1.000. Not even one 1026 passed muster to
a degree Bill was satisfied with. Since the scopes have gone to
production,
the only way someone like yourself will be satisfied is if the entire
production batch turns out OK, but then will not the statements be
made that they were good because they were the first batch? If
China can produce 80ED and 100ED scopes that prople are happy
with, just maybe they can do this scope as well. As with any product,
people will need to buy it for this to be known. But what I get here is
don't even discuss the performance of the first scope.

In a word, it already has been fixed. I have the proof in my hands.
If anyone gets a bad scope, they will have a return option, or a repair
option. If that is not good enough, might be best to not consider one.

Thanks, Tom Davis

On 21 Nov 2004 23:08:10 GMT, (Jon Isaacs) wrote:

To Tom Davis and the rest...

It was my understanding that Burgess Optical and various folks with connections
to BO were going to avoid commenting on products that were not yet available to
the public.

In the past this has caused Burgess Optics and others a large amount of grief
including yours truly. I was suckered in to the predessor to this scope, the
102F6 nearly 2 years ago by glowing reports of Prototype performance and
assurances of Burgess Optics customer care and quality assurance and of course
a very attractive price.

So far, this story has just been one of disappointment and disaster. (The
upside is that I did have an extra 2 inch diagonal to lend to Howard Lester to
use with his Orion ED80.)

The downside is that I have been on a roller coaster of ups and down, promises
followed by failure, after all my scope was supposed to be shipped within a
month of the order date which was in March of 2003. What I ended up with was
a scope 10 months later that even by my lax standards was unusable. Now
nearly a year later, again I have been hopeful numerous times, still nothing...

I hope that Burgess Optical is able to pull this one off.

But at the same time, I hope that no one here mistakes a glowing review of a
Proto-type as an indication that soon a similar scope will available to the
general public.

Shades of Vernonscope and one of their 80mm apos. Prototype kicked
ass, production model a disaster which became an overpriced achro
called, the "Master Birder" that couldn't even support over 50x. They
were able to produce a real apo after a time, but the one I was able
to test was absolutely terrible, and it was being sold for almost $800
used, to some poor fool.

Given your description of this, it sounds like a company financing
production via up front payments by customers, a very dangerous
situation for a company to be in.

But what would be interesting to know is if the Burgess scopes are
Burgess scopes? Meaning are their other sources of the same
telescope, since the Chinese don't really seem inclined to keep single
sources when it comes to product? Dealer exclusivity is not a halmark
of the Oriental production scheme since the primary goal of the mass
market there is to move numbers off a production line, as many as
possible and the way to do that is with multiple dealers and branding.

If they release the little apo, I'm wondering if we'll see the same
scruitiny applied to it by other well-known opticians that has been
applied to other apos?
-Rich

Tom, I am sure you mean well, but with you as my lawyer I would get the
chair for jaywalking.
Clear skies,
Bill Meyers

Tom Davis wrote:
Jan,

Several different issues. Bill had allowed pre-orders on some products in
the past that were taken away by other companies who waved the wand
of a larger order with them. This obviously hurt Bill's reputation, but
there
was not much he could do about it. Thie is one reason why he and Thomas
Back are not now talking about scopes and other products they might have
in process. The 102 Semi-Apo was already promised, so that has been
discussed, and thie scope here was promised, and since it is now in
production, Bill asked me to post a review of it.

There are always two sides to a story, though. All the 1026s were sold
at a discount as-is. Those with scopes they could not work to their
satisfaction were still offered refunds, but they could not be fixed due to
not having proper objectives to replace them with. I've had a problem with
every short-focus Synta achromat I've owned, except for a good 8 year
old orion short-tube 80 I have. Bill simply sold that quality level with
these
scopes, when he expected to sell better. At $150 for the package, it was
not at all out of line with the market price for other branded versions that
were no better. Some people are happy with theirs, others not. Bill was
not happy with them, so sold them at a discount. This is an old story,
but it has left some deep wounds with some expecting a better product.
To make a long story short, he has been on a long search since for higher
quality products overseas. This scope appears to be on hit on the search.

On the repair issue, I know I had no problem getting parts from Bill. I
needed a tube ring for my 1278, and got one in two days. I sold that
scope, and they swapped out the focuser for the next buyer who had the
focuser mis-align in shipment. They could not collimate it, so Bill took
one off the shelf, collimated it in an OTA in the shop, and shipped it to
my buyer with a return tag for the old focuser. There are horror stories
with Meade and Celestron service that would take days for us to go
through if all were posted here. Things happen.

Thanks, Tom Davis

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:GCbod.125498$cJ3.124835@fed1read06...

Doesn't matter at all to me personally.

I have no stake in it. But I have been hearing from folks for some time
about scopes ordered and not received. And about issues that have
surfaced that are being fixed (but haven't been fixed yet, or at least
their scopes have not been delivered yet...).

Not something you're responsible for in any way. You just peeled the scab
off, so to speak...

I simply wondered out loud when these issues might realistically end. Not
an issue for me personally. But that may not be the case for others...

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.662
Longitude: -112.3272

"Tom Davis" wrote in message
.com...

"Jan Owen" wrote in message
news:WKaod.125491$cJ3.79076@fed1read06...

And this is all going to get fixed during out lifetimes???


Jan,

There is nothing to fix. Five scopes passed an interferometer test.

What

more do you want? This scope has no relationship to the Burgess 1026.
The 1026 could not be fixed, because every one of the objectives sold
were substandard, even the stopped down prototype. First thing I did
with this scope was pull the rear baffle and test for vignetting

afterwards.

None. The interferometer test was done with no baffles involved. The
1026s were not tested in anything approaching this way. Bill has

learned

much about doing QA on scopes. The manufacturer of the lenses is
also doing QA. None of the lenses they provided Bill were substandard,
even the one that Bill's telescope tube manufacturer broke the front
element on. All that happened was a mistake by William Optics in
assembling the objective on this tube. This was not done in their
plant, and this can't happen again as every objective from that point
forward is being assembled, collimated, and tested in the optical plant.

Just to make this point crystal clear again, the 1026 had the

objectives

made by another optical manufacturer, with nowhere near the expertise,
equipment, or quality of optical materials as the 92 fluorite

manufacturer.

I can attest to the quality of what I have and any statements that the
following shipping scopes will be substandard is nothing more than
an unsubstantiated accusation. So far, the manufacturer has been
five for five, or batted 1.000. Not even one 1026 passed muster to
a degree Bill was satisfied with. Since the scopes have gone to

production,

the only way someone like yourself will be satisfied is if the entire
production batch turns out OK, but then will not the statements be
made that they were good because they were the first batch? If
China can produce 80ED and 100ED scopes that prople are happy
with, just maybe they can do this scope as well. As with any product,
people will need to buy it for this to be known. But what I get here is
don't even discuss the performance of the first scope.

In a word, it already has been fixed. I have the proof in my hands.
If anyone gets a bad scope, they will have a return option, or a repair
option. If that is not good enough, might be best to not consider one.

Thanks, Tom Davis

"RichA" wrote in message
...

Shades of Vernonscope and one of their 80mm apos. Prototype kicked
ass, production model a disaster which became an overpriced achro
called, the "Master Birder" that couldn't even support over 50x. They
were able to produce a real apo after a time, but the one I was able
to test was absolutely terrible, and it was being sold for almost $800
used, to some poor fool.

Given your description of this, it sounds like a company financing
production via up front payments by customers, a very dangerous
situation for a company to be in.

But what would be interesting to know is if the Burgess scopes are
Burgess scopes? Meaning are their other sources of the same
telescope, since the Chinese don't really seem inclined to keep single
sources when it comes to product? Dealer exclusivity is not a halmark
of the Oriental production scheme since the primary goal of the mass
market there is to move numbers off a production line, as many as
possible and the way to do that is with multiple dealers and branding.

If they release the little apo, I'm wondering if we'll see the same
scruitiny applied to it by other well-known opticians that has been
applied to other apos?
-Rich


Rich,

I never really saw a good Vernonscope 80mm APO. I looked through one
of the the first ones at Stellafane years ago, and well remember how much
red fringing it had in the daytime. This one would not have been made in
China, though, as this predated the Chinese optical industry startup. It
may be later versions got better, then worse.

This scope has a better chance of success due to how it is made. As long
as the fluorite continues to be made to the same quality as the first batch
by them, the rest should be a non-issue. The polishing machines are some
of the best in the world, and the mating glass in in constant pour. What
Jon referred to were the first efforts of Bill to get scopes out of China.
The
first manufacturer he went to produced optics of mediocre quality at best.
This one as shown vastly better capabilities. There is, of course, always
an open question until a large number of a production line product has
gotten into cutomer hands, but I know enough about this company to feel
fairly comfortable with their QA. I doubt I will be the only one with a
good scope here.

I hear you on the ability to get exclusives on products. What is worse is
that one company finds a manufacturer, orders products, and then is told
they can't get them for months, because another company came in behind
them and bought out their current runs of product. The buyers are no
better than the manufacturers, as in many cases they see a sample of the
product from one vendor, and then go in and buy it out from under them.
This happened to Bill Burgess a couple of times. Now he has learned to
not speak about a product before it is ready to ship. This scope is an
exception, as it was promised some months ago.

Thanks, Tom Davis

I am extremely sorry I got involved with this. I did not agree to hold
back on this scope, but the semi-apo. How many times must I say
this. The objective in this scope IS NOT A PROTOTYPE. It is
production. The lens cell on the scope I have is the prototype, not
the objective. Bill had them test the first five scopes on an
interferometer.
All 5 passed the test with flying colors, and were essentially carbon copies
of each other.

Tom:

I am sorry you are upset by my comments but in the interests of everyone
involved I feel that I have addressed important issues.

Whether the cell, the objective, tube itself is "production" or "prototype", it
seems apparent to me that the scope you tested does not seem to be true
"production scope." I don't see how this can be anything but a "Prototype"
with a Prototype cell and non-standard OTA.

Whether or not you or anyone promised anyone not to publish reports until the
production items are available is not the important issue in my view.

The important issue is that BO has gotten itself into trouble doing this in the
past and the lesson to be learned, which I thought had been learned, was that
keeping one's mouth shut until the final product was available was the wisest
course of action.

Jon Isaacs