Notes

```First of all, let me apologize for the confusion and unclear statements that I have made. I have no ill will against Astronomics, I have just been very frustrated with this whole thing and took it out on them as the original vendor of this scope, who I thought would be able to fix it.

I bought the scope not from my uncle, but from a CN user who will remain nameless because there is no point in saying who it was at this point. Astronomics has been informed since they run CN and the sale occurred on CN. The reason I lied about who I bought it from is because I was afraid that Astronomics would not provide any service if I was not the original owner. I thought that by it staying in the family, they might allow it and still uphold a warranty. This fear was due to what I have heard about Orion's complete lack of customer service to anyone who is not the original purchaser of an Orion product. I know now that Astronomics is not like Orion, and I should have been honest from the start, but can you blame me for being a little iffy about it?```

```I did everything I could to try to resolve the issue myself, having the focuser fixed up and re-collimated, re-assembling the lens elements, verifying the flattener direction, and testing the changes numerous times using PixInsight's FWHMEccentricity plot and CCDInspector's 3D and contour plots. Note, I was specifically instructed by Astronomics to disassemble the scope and verify that the lenses were pointing the correct direction. I found that the rear element of the objective (easily disassembled by the way) was backwards, according to the official scope diagram, so I flipped it. This unfortunately did not fix the issue. I have also found that the retaining rings are made of cheap plastic which is potentially damaged from being over-tightened, but also the objective is held together by thin threads and I believe that the construction of the cell may allow for the type of behavior I have seen. I really don't know what the exact story is, but I have certainly done everything I can think of, everything I've been instructed to do, and everything I have the tools to do.

I tried to resolve this issue with the seller, who should have been aware of it since I have no reason to believe the scope was damaged in shipping to me. Since he only used it as a guide scope, it is possible he did not know, I will concede that. However I believe he did know, based on how short and unhelpful he was with me. I filed a PayPal dispute a week and a half ago after doing all of this troubleshooting and the seller did not reply at all, but as soon as I escalated it to phase 2, he came back with his usual BS about how I said the scope was great right after I got it (not having used it enough to see its true behavior) and technically it is in my possession. PayPal denied my dispute and now I have no recourse. No matter what I do, I will have to put significantly more money into this scope.```

```I want to thank everyone for their help up to this point. Again I apologize for confusion and the lie about who I bought it from. I am at a loss, literally and figuratively. All I can hope for now is that SOR/Astronomics will work with me on the problem, even if I have to eat the cost of a new objective and be scopeless for 6 months. I literally have no other options at this point. :(```