The NJP Saga

It is my quasi long-term goal to put together a system for astrophotography. This consists of three major units: a telescope, a telescope mount, and a CCD camera. Unfortunately, this equipment is very expensive. The mount that I selected -- and the first piece of equipment in this set -- was a Takahashi NJP – about $7500 retail, but on July 22, 2007 I found one that included a Meade Giant Field Tripod on Astromart for about $5500. After corresponding with the seller, I sent a check on July 31.

Needless to say, I was very anxious as I waited at home for the UPS driver to deliver it on August 9. After unpacking the boxes (it was shipped in 6 packages) I was not at all pleased with what I saw. The Temma (electronics) control box was severely dented and, although it was not obvious at the time, the right ascension motor was also destroyed.



The seller (who will remain anonymous) was very helpful in contacting UPS and filing a claim, and on August 14 UPS was supposed to contact me to schedule an inspection visit to photograph the damage. They eventually did call and visited on August 16. The inspector was noncommittal when asked about whether or not the claim would be paid – for the most part she just took photos. After this, there were no developments for quite some time, and what correspondence did occur was between the seller and UPS.

In any case, I was now left with a non-functional and very expensive mount, so repairing it was the only real option. I had it crated in wood and shipped (via FedEx this time) back to Texas Nautical Repair on August 21 – it arrived on August 24 and repairs began.

On September 4 I received an email from the seller indicating that UPS had initially denied the claim due to insufficient packaging (apparently having it double-boxed with the inner “box” consisting of a $400 Pelican case is considered “insufficient”), but that he intended to fight that determination. I do not know exactly what happened next, but on September 10 I received another email from the seller indicating that the claim would be paid by UPS. On October 17 the seller mailed me a check to reimburse me for the cost of shipping the mount back to Texas for repair (which UPS reimbursed him for, I understand).

On October 22 the repairs were finished (costing about $1250, which the seller paid and UPS reimbursed) and Art at Texas Nautical Repair shipped the mount back to me via UPS. I was not particularly happy with this choice of companies, but it arrived intact on October 25. Due to a 3-week business trip to Japan on November 3, I did not do any extensive testing other than to verify that the mount was physically intact.

So, after 4 months of waiting, I have a working NJP mount. The seller in this case was incredibly helpful, and the whole experience didn’t cost me anything extra in the end. Still, I will always have a deep-seated distrust of UPS due to this incident, and I intend to avoid doing business with them whenever possible. Had the seller not been willing to stand up to their initial denial of the claim, I would have been out $1250 due to their gross mishandling of such a valuable item.