Posts Made By: Kent Kramer

Do you have a budget?

David,

Instead of inches try pixels. The reality on the Internet is many folks (over 1/2) browse on monitors set to 1024 X 768 resolution. I see several photographs posted here that require you to scroll around to see them. I am not sure of the logic in that. Most want to see the photograph in its entirety not a bit, then scroll, then a bit more, then scroll... With all the navigation on this site - across the top and bottom and down both sides you need to keep your photographs to 640 X 480 or at most in my opinion 800 X 600.

In Photoshop or any other image processing program set the image size to 640 X 480 pixels. Save the image as a jpeg at medium resolution as the majority of the high resolution data is lost in the compression anyway. The resulting file will often be under 100K and be pleasing to the viewer and accepted by the Astromart upload tool. If someone just has to have the high resolution image they can ask you for it. Even the best images selected by Herb as the POD are put up as a small 200 X 200 pixel (or less) thumbnail linked to an image that opens to the approximate dimensions I mentioned and are kept in the 100K size range.

Kent

You can cancel an eBay listing. I believe that they keep the listing fee. They may also keep some of the other fees - the Buy it Now fee for example. They just don't get a final valuation fee.

There are provisions in their listing tool to end an auction early.

No harm no foul. Herb's heavy handedness though is another story.



Kent

Beautiful! I bet it provides some stunning views too.

Kent

I agree with what Ivan mentioned about keeping the forum active. I tired that a bit early on with the Nikon forum and maybe on the User Film and CCD Photos forum with little success. I thought of holding a contest for one of Herb's 24" Starmaster's to get things jump started but I thought he might get pissed.

Mostly though I try to keep my eye on bad behavior and stir the pot elsewhere on the site to make it fun for all the other moderators.

In other words I am here often enough without being too proactive.

I read Politics and Religion to get a good laugh at how serious people can be but I steer clear of posting there for the most part. I am not as smart as those people and I am afraid of getting found out.



Kent

Maybe the seller did not get the email. Try posting your reponse by email and on the Astromart private messaging system.

Kent

www.reliablehardware.com

Kent

Hi Alex,

No mention is made in the TOS in regards to ratings. However a detailed explanation can be found at https://www.astromart.com/users/rateabout.asp. Specifically, "Can I rate a user I did not do business with?
Yes, however, since Astromart is not involved in the actual transaction in any way, we cannot tell who actually completed transactions with each other, but we ask that you do not rate a user you did not actually purchase from/sell to. This system is designed to be helpful to Astromart users. Abusing it by "flaming" or otherwise seeking to harm the reputation of another user hurts the Astromart community as a whole and may result in you being banned from using the Astromart system."

The link can be found once you go to rate a person. There are a few bullet points of text explaining the basics of the process. This section begins with a link called “Click Here” that provides details including the text I cut and pasted above.

I agree there are a few nuts out there. All on line communities have them. There are plenty of rating sites/ranting sites on the net that we could collectively use to expose these nuts. I suspect that Herb would not appreciate that behavior either. One that rants on Herb can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/astromart-uncensored/. A lot of flaming goes on there or has in the past. I for one don’t believe a word of it. As such, what did that effort really accomplish? Other than the entertainment factor…

Oh no what have I done.

Kent

With little atmosphere to protect it the Lunar surface gets smacked quite a bit. I don't know much about major impacts though. NASA has some great material to peruse here - http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/moon_worldbook.html. Great question. It was my first target as an eclipse back in the mid to late 60's. I would bet most of us went there with our very first scope before most other objects.

Kent

Hi Casey,

Go for it in the winter. Many of us, most of us are concerned like you about maintaining the condition of our equipment. As much as I observed I never had any dew issues until I stopped and brought the equipment in after winter sessions. I would recommend running a small fan across the front of the tube to move air in an effort to reduce any condensation on the mirrors. I did this using a small computer type fan on my Achro's, Tak Mewlons, MT130's and APO's. Over time you may see some spots but they can easily be cleaned if they impact viewing. If they don't get in the way of your viewing leave them alone.

Kent