Buy a telescope and save 25% - what's not to like about that?

If you've been following the saga, you know by now that I bought a $799 list ($699 street price), $399 on sale Celestron Onyx 80 EDF telescope for $299. I also bought a bunch of accessories at 25% off. Here's how I did it.

The key here is to:

• find something that you want (e.g. the Onyx)
• for sale by a reputable dealer (e.g. High Point Scientific)
• on eBay (e.g. http://www.ebay.com/)
• at a great price (e.g. $399 with free shipping)
• in a Buy-It-Now auction
• where they accept payment by PayPal
• and they are not using some third-party shopping cart for checkout
• and Microsoft Live Search is still offering 25% cash back for qualifying eBay purchases made with PayPal

There's a lot of discussion about how this works here (at the Fat Wallet forum).

Here's the detailed version for telescope lovers:

1. Go to Microsoft Live Search
2. Search for something popular that is likely to be sold on eBay
   (for example, search for ipod)
3. Look for a "sponsored sites" block at the top of the search results
4. If you're lucky, one of the entries in the "sponsored sites" block will be something like:
   Ipod - http://www.ebay.com/ Live Search CashBack Buy Ipod. You may get 25% off with PayPal if eligible.
5. Click on the Live Search CashBack link in the "sponsored sites" block next to the http://www.ebay.com/ link (as described above in #3)
6. The link takes you to http://www.ebay.com/ showing a page with a list of ipods for sale.
   Make sure that at the top of the page you see a green Microsoft CashBack 25% logo (next to the logo it states: Must use Buy It Now and PayPal - see conditions)
7. Important - on (most? some of the paypal screens may not show it) all of the following screens, make sure that the green Microsoft CashBack logo is visible, to be certain that you're going to get the CashBack for this transaction. If you want to do two or more transactions, it's best to start at the beginning for the second one after completing the first).
8. You may want to print a screen shot of this screen and all following screens just in case you need proof that you should be getting CashBack for this purchase (it has never been necessary for me to argue with Microsoft, but I document things well just to be sure). You may also want to open the 'see conditions' page in another browser window and print it off.
9. In the search box at the top of the page, key in celestron onyx and click on the Search button.
10. The search result page that I get shows two links for the same auction from High Point Scientific with the buy-it-now price of $399 and free shipping. Note the green Microsoft CashBack icon at the top of the page.
11. Click on the link for that auction. The auction page currently shows "4 available". The green icon is at the top of this page, too. (Important Update: the last time that I looked, it said "2 available". So YMMV.)
12. Read the auction details, make sure that you want to buy the telescope, then click on the Buy It Now button.
13. You will go through the usual Buy It Now confirmation and checkout pages, each showing the green logo. The page after you confirm your Buy It Now will probably show that you will get $99 CashBack for this purchase if you pay via PayPal.
14. Continue the checkout process and pay via PayPal.
15. Your confirmation message at the end tells you to keep an eye out for a CashBack message sent to your eBay "My Messages". It may take some time to appear - for me it took less than an hour.
16. Read the message in My Messages, click on the button in that message to go to Microsoft CashBack, sign in to your CashBack account (if you have one) or create one to tell Microsoft where to credit the CashBack for this purchase.
17. When you sign in, you will see info about any other CashBack transactions you have pending or already have received. This new transaction will probably not yet be listed in your CashBack account - it normally takes a day or more before it shows up there.
18. Wait 60 days. (Yes, I know that it's hard, but I'm sure that you can handle it. I did, for an earlier purchase.)
19. Get your CashBack transferred into your PayPal account.
20. Buy something else with your cash back. Or transfer it into the checking account linked to your PayPal account.

YMMV, but so far I've had very good results and saved many hundreds of $$ (of course, I also spent many hundreds of $$).

The neat thing is that this works for other stuff besides telescopes and telescope accessories, too. Just ask my new Klipsch speakers.

Not to rain on your parade, but it's important to read and understand the CashBack terms and conditions. For example, Microsoft won't give you more than $200 cash back per session, but then you weren't going to spend more than $800 a shot, were you?

There are other ways to take advantage of Microsoft CashBack besides the method that I described above, albeit many with less of a discount than the 25% currently available through eBay (Note: They may increase or decrease that percentage at any time. In fact, they may cancel the bribery, er, the CashBack program at any time as well).

I have left those other ways to take advantage of Microsoft's generosity as an exercise for the reader.

What's not to like about that?

Thank you, Microsoft Live Search...

I'm showing my age a bit, but I remember well an old TV and print advertising campaign where the catch phrase was "Thank you, Paine Webber". The backstory always involved some yuppie-ish 50-something man or woman who was enjoying their early retirement by sailing their yacht to Tahiti or golfing in Hawaii or whatever, all because they'd had the foresight to invest their spare change under the guidance of the financial whizboys at the Paine, Webber & Co. brokerage firm and had been handsomely rewarded for the effort.

Since that time, Paine, Webber & Co. has been snarfed up by Swiss banking giant UBS AG, the ads have long-since disappeared from the boob tube, and UBS is now under investigation by Congress and the IRS for their possible role in facilitating tax 'fraud' by those selfsame 50-something yuppies by concealing those retirees' hard-earned assets in anonymous Swiss bank accounts, far from the eyes of the snooping tax thieves (um, I mean, those tireless and dedicated federal government employees with the tax agent badges and the computers and the guns who are just doing their jobs by diligently collecting our patriotic tax payments so that they can be redistributed to more worthy beneficiaries). But that's all a digression that could get some unfortunate and penniless blogger into trouble with the authorities (not to mention turning off all of those hapless blog readers who were expecting to find a trove of high-quality, technology-oriented stream-of-consciousness prose here, and not some bait-and-switch libertarian polemics) if he were to venture too far down that path. So, back to the good stuff.

Now it's my time to say thank you, not to Paine Webber, but to everybody's favorite punching bag Microsoft, and their always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride search engine at http://www.live.com/.

It seems that as hard as they try, with the "I'm a PC and you're not" advertisements and the browser bundling and the failed bid to purchase Yahoo and all that other nonsense, Microsoft is still running way behind in their quest to capture a majority of the Search-engine eyeballs (that sounds gross, doesn't it? But I didn't invent the term, I'm only the messenger. If you don't believe me, take a look at http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=%22search+engine+eyeballs%22&form=QBRE or http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22search+engine+eyeballs%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= for proof. I wouldn't lie to you.)

It's pretty embarassing when a humongous corporation, one such as Microsoft that's so often in the public spotlight, invests so much and gets so little return. So when all else failed, when all of their pleas and plots and plans and even their imprecations came to naught, what was their obvious next move? Try Bribery (hey, maybe I should trademark that - it would make a great marketing slogan, wouldn't it?).

Let me say it again, just for kicks. Try Bribery. After all, as a strategy for enhancing the bottom line it seemingly works well enough. At least it does until the time when it stops working (see Randy Cunningham, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham - oops, there he goes again, straying into dangerous territory).

It seems that Microsoft has been getting into the paid search business. Not just getting in, but jumping in, leaping in, with both feet, an arm, a leg, and a big, fat wallet (no, not that Fat Wallet http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals - I cleverly left off the leading caps when writing about Microsoft's fat wallet as a way of differentiating it from the Fat Wallet forum that I mentioned in an earlier post. And no, Fat Wallet is not paying me for the publicity - although, full disclosure, they did send me a free T-shirt last month, but that was completely unrelated to this blog - after all, I only started writing the blog today - and even though I asked them for a size L they sent me a medium and it was too small to wear - maybe I'll eBay it).

In this context, paid search means that they pay you for having the wisdom to use their search engine, and not that you pay them to search.

By now you must be wondering, "What on earth does this blather have to do with telescopes, anyway?"

Oh, I remember, that's what I was trying to get to all along - I bought my $399 Celestron Onyx 80EDF telescope for only $299 thanks to Microsoft Live Search. And I bought the other Onyx accessories at a 25% discount, too, all on Microsoft's dime.

So, that's why I say, sincerely, "Thank you, Microsoft Live Search..."

Stay tuned for the details on how I did it.

I bought a telescope yesterday...

They say that it's a mistake to go grocery shopping when you're hungry, because you'll end up making bizarre impulse purchases that you'd never make with a clear head and a full stomach.

The same advice clearly applies to telescope shopping.

I didn't realize that I was hungry for another telescope. Sure, I've wanted to own a really good scope ever since I was in first grade, but never quite got around to buying or building one.

While I have owned a bottom-of-the-line Meade go-to scope for several years, I can count the number of times that it's been out of the box on the fingers of both hands. It's a Meade ETX-60AT (see http://www.novac.com/resources/reviews/etx60.php for one disgruntled reviewer's take) that I bought on an impulse one day when I was shopping for groceries at a local Costco. I didn't get the matching tripod - instead, I bought a low-end surveyor's tripod (because I wanted to get double duty out of it - it came with a great 360-degree calibrated swivel head for which I had other as-yet-unfulfilled plans) and fashioned a crude adapter plate to hold the telescope in place. I have used the ETX-60AT with an accessory solar filter to view sunspots (remember what those are?) back in the day when the sun was overflowing with them. I also pulled it out of the box a few years back to look at a transit of Venus - the only trouble being the early-morning overcast that obscured the sun (from my back yard). In a feat of last-minute desperation, I tossed the Meade into my car and drove fifteen miles to a spot on the Connecticut shore, hoping for clearer skies. Sure enough, the skies cleared up for me at the shore, but not until five or ten minutes after the end of the transit (missed it by that much!)... The next one is coming in 2012 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012). Maybe I'll be better prepared for that one (I'll view it from Japan, if I'm lucky).

So, it's not as though I'm Joe Astronomer or anything close to that.

That's why I was so surprised to discover myself buying a second telescope.

My new toy is a Celestron Onyx 80EDF telescope. It's a sleek 80mm refractor with sports-car looks and (mostly) rave reviews (see http://www.celestron.com/c2/product.php?CatID=60&ProdID=396). It has a list price of $799 (not including frills such as eyepieces, mount, diagonal, et al) and a typical street price of $699, but it seems that Celestron is closing out that model, and several dealers are offering it for $399 while quantities last.

For example, you can find the Onyx for $399 with free ground shipping at High Point Scientific (http://www.highpointscientific.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=3424) or at Astronomics (http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/New%20Products/product_id/ONYX).

Astronomics also sells a more complete kit, part number ONYXPAK (see http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/NS157B5GP9T59NHLPHTG4GMBX4/product_id/ONYXPAK) for $799. The kit includes the Onyx 80ED along with:

• a 2" Celestron XLT diagonal (Celestron part number 93526 which Astronomics sells separately for $139.95 - see http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/FMQNRTR9001K8HFE68PKXTPEC0/product_id/7718)
• a 21mm Celestron X-Cel ED eyepiece (Celestron part number 93392 which Astronomics sells separately for $67.95 - see http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/BWMPVSMT9ADP9NDJM4N64D8861/product_id/CXL21)
• and an Astro Tech Voyager Alt-Az mount (which Astronomics sells separately for $299 - see http://www.astronomics.com/main/product.asp/catalog_name/Astronomics/category_name/455BS0F9RD968KREF4BQ6FGR63/product_id/ATV)

When I make a big purchase, I try to get better-than-usual prices. If you frequent one of the online 'deals' sites (such as Fat Wallet http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals, Hot Deals Club http://www.hotdealsclub.com/, and Slick Deals http://www.slickdeals.net/), you can find ways to save a lot of $$$. After all, why pay $399 for something that you can get for $299.

Unfortunately, you can also find ways to spend lots of $$$ to buy things that you were not originally planning to buy. Browsing through the Hot Deals forum at Fat Wallet is just like going grocery shopping on an empty stomach.

So, of course, I bought my Onyx for $299 (more about that in a later post).

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? So I also bought all of the accessories that Astronomics sells in their Onyx kit (but for an even lower price). And then I bought some more stuff to use with the Onyx.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I didn't realize that I was hungry for a new telescope. Now I can't wait for the UPS truck to arrive.

So, what is an 'infotuner'?

What is an 'infotuner'? And why did I name my blog after it? And why am I asking myself these dumb questions? And isn't it annoying to see all of these sentences beginning with the word 'And'?

All good questions. Maybe I'll get around to addressing them some day.

For now, I'll just say a few words about my plans for this blog and leave it at that.

My intent is to write about:

• Photography and cameras
• Astronomy and telescopes
• Technology and computers

See any pattern there?

I'd call myself an 'enthusiast' rather than a professional. Way back when I was an MIT undergrad I would have called myself a 'hacker', but that term has been abused and degraded to the point where it is safer to give it a wide berth. [Some folks use the term 'ethical hacker' to differentiate themselves from, I guess, the legions of 'unethical hackers' out there, but that phrase never resonated with me. To my ears, referring to someone as an 'ethical hacker' is almost as jarring as calling them an 'ethical criminal'. Thanks, but no thanks.]

My writing will focus on practical topics and real-life experiences. I'll leave the philosophy to others. Instead, I'll concentrate on the "how-to's" and "the things that they forgot to tell you". Look for a mix of reviews, hands-on projects, and links to useful resources. Oh, and the occasional digression.

Stay tuned for more...

A new day, a new blog...

Just what the Internet needs - another blog.

Just what I need - another item on my to-do list.

I tried blogging once upon a time. I published two posts. Then I gave up.

I'll try to do better with this one.