Astronomy Ireland Nationwide Mars Watch 29th March

Graham wrote: That's a pity, I must try and pop over one of the days and see the new shop!

It's a bit small but it is only the shop it's not a space shared with the offices.

i think ill go its nice and dark there for the city IAS/SDAS
is full of lights right lads we been here before they have
learned from their mistake i dont think they will do it again
i only know one guy over their and thats carl he,s the nicest
guy you can talk too dont take it out on the guys who work
there ill bring my scope.

I have nothing against them whatsoever, as long you know how to spot a hard sell the lads are great to deal with and do have some nice deals now and then, 12/10 for service but 6/10 for price!

Do they let you take your own scope to the Phoenix Park??

Well I was at the viewing in the park, there was a huge turn out 300 people maybe more. They had about 10-11 scopes set up and 5-6 binoculars. Importantly there was no buckets looking for donations, they had a part of the car park blocked off and at the entrance to that part there was a desk selling their magazine for €4 which is 50 cent of the cover price, my sister bought a copy and was given the issue before for free. They were asking people to sign up for the email alerts but nobody was forcing anybody to. As for bringing your own scope I didn't see anything but Celestron scopes there but I did hear someone being asked to set up their own scope (which was a Celestron) by one of the A.I. guys. From a beginners viewpoint there was no help being giving to novices as to how to set up their scopes. There was one guy there having an awful time trying to get his 8SE set up with the Nexstar, no one came over to help him from the shop, but like I said at the start there was a lot of people there queuing to use the scopes. Overall an enjoyable evening for me as I was talking to the guys I had been dealing with in the shop at the weekend, but it was not as personal a night (if you get what I mean) as the Sandymount nights with SDAS/IAS guys.


Edit: According to post from A.I. there was over 1,000 people at it.

I turned up late at about 9.30 loads of people but nobody who
had any experience i could not belive most of them could not
even set the scopes up right and nobody was helping whats
amazing is the same people telling me about scopes when i
started was the very same guy i seen last night who is in
charge in AI out their could not even set up the scope for
a guy last night who asked him i didnt see carl he,s the only
guy who has a lot of experience it really annoyed me iv heard
about the charging for looking with the scopes its hard to
believe that they would have the neck to do it once again
selling the same old free mag for 4 euro that they really
give for free or that you can see on any of the hundreds
of astronomy websites i really taught they had learned their
lesson but no its the same old game one big sales pitch.

Such a shame!! If not an embarrassment as the majority of my gear came from AI!! : angry: