The Motherload has landed !

Tonio50 wrote: Are these Sandymount observing sessions affiliated to an astronomy club and when do they take place?

The Sandymount sessions are open to the public.
They will start up again in late September and there will be a post on the forum in advance.

Michael.

I was going to wait till I bought another big block of pluck foam for my EP flightcase but had a brainwave. Use the foam inserts that the EP's nestled in in their Televue boxes. That way I was able to utilise the pluck foam I already had to fill in the gaps. Doesn't look half bad if I do say so myself and the EP's are well supported.



I forgot to do a Coca Cola Money Shot yesterday. A Hyperion Eyepiece only gives you a sense of the size of these monsters if you are familiar with Hyperions or own one.

8 Green Bottles (...and a can of coke) sitting on a wall. If one of those green bottles should accidently fall
......there'll be 7 green bottles sittin' on the wall (and an astronomer prostrate on the floor in floods of tears) :laugh:



Group Hug



Piggy in the Middle



Needless to say that when I opened that first box with the 21mm Ethos, the first words out of my mouth were, " Holy $%*& !!" :laugh:

The question is, Do I insure the Flightcase for the amount I paid for them or for the amount all that stuff would cost in Europe : blink: because one is half the other : blink:

Man, that 21 is a monster.!! is it heavier then the 31?
Id insure them for the amount it would cost to replace them in europe.

Did you get through without customs duty in the end Keith ?.

joner wrote: Did you get through without customs duty in the end Keith ?.

I did and I didn't mate :whistle:

I had the full amount set aside for the customs and VAT. Then two weeks ago before the Aunt sent the Eyepieces our West Highland Terrier had his paw mauled by a dog walking past our gate. One of our Westies was sitting at the gate with his paws protruding underneath the gate. Anyway, big VET bill was incurred and on short notice I had to dip into the money set aside for the customs and VAT. Aunt contacted me via Facebook to tell me she was ready to send them and wanted to know what to fill in on the forms. I gave her an adjusted figure for the declared value to take into account what I had taken out of the Customs/VAT fund. ie. declare at a value that incurred €400 instead of €600.

She'd previously mentioned when I initially contacted her asking her to do all this for me that she could mark it as a gift. I replied that I would prefer if she didn't. I have no problem getting away with not paying Customs/VAT if its An Post themselves that fail to levy it but I have no problem paying it if it is in fact levied so that my conscience is clear. I even went so far as to explain to her that by marking as a gift with a high declared value, she'd probably be increasing my chances of being caught for Customs/VAT. Anyway, all sorted and clarified or so I thought.

Package arrives yesterday. She'd only gone and reduced the declared value I gave her in half and also marked as a gift. I was charged €208 Customs/VAT based on this. The An Post delivery guy unprompted tells me straight away I should dispute this with Customs as the box wasn't opened/examined by Customs and that they must have missed the tick in the 'Gift' box on the form. He said he would nearly guarantee my money would be refunded.

I thanked him for the advice but needless to say, I won't be following his advice and trying to get a refund. Its bad enough I was stuck for cash and in a panic decided to underdeclare to save the amount I was short, worse again that the Aunt went even further of her own volition. It would be morally wrong to claim back what after all was an amount 2/3 less than what was officially due.

Soon as my car repayments finish next March I'll be making a donation to Cancer Research to salve my conscience :blush:

So there you have it. I did and I didn't get caught for Customs. :laugh:

Dave_Lillis wrote: Man, that 21 is a monster.!! is it heavier then the 31?
Id insure them for the amount it would cost to replace them in europe.

Its heavier by 1 ounce Dave. Not that my hands are that sensitive though. I had to look it up! :blush:

Of course you are right about using the European Value for insurance purposes. Sure haven't I been rationalising the purchase of them all in one go now rather than one at a time over a year or two like I originally intended, based on the fact that it was a very rare opportunity indeed that multiple discounts, exchange rates and spare cash in my bank account meant I could save so much. The chances of the planets aligning like that again are slim and I'd end up having to replace them at normal US pricing (+P&P+25% Customs/VAT) or European pricing, so it does indeed make sense to insure them at European Replacement cost.

Jaysus, now that I think about it talking about insured values and looking over my shoulder at the open Flightcase, between the Eyepieces, The Howie Glatter Laser Collimator and the 2" H-Beta, 0III, UHC and Polorizing Moon Filter.......

Theres over €5000 worth of gear in that case!!

I think I'll be buying a length of chain and handcuffing the case to my wrist at public Events :ohmy: :laugh: