watch your wallet!!! - nova hunt scam and rentascopes in general


Remember this one?

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Meade-Uncensored/message/8319

or possibly the words of a professional might help

http://www.spacebanter.com/showthread.php?p=412715

and the guy attacking the professional is the same guy as the nova
hunt campaign announcer, another alias.

Or maybe you don't even know this one:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/narrowband/messages

Not many posts, read them all. Notice how the asking for money
increases in intensity and how Martin and Hannah play their roles,
then check the message headers and find all their posts came from the
same originating IP and modem (gotta pick the right one, lots of them
are internal yahoo IPs, these ones are near the bottom), despite one
supposedly being in Dublin and the other in Daventry. It's a semi-
dynamic IP system too, and other cases on other groups of them
emailing at about the same time from the same modem, despite being in
countries that don't have a common IP based telecom service. Yes, the
money would have gone to the project, and telescope time would have
been rented, but notice the tone of the emails from those two, and the
interplay. Hundreds of US dollars needed to use the scopes.

Usually Hannah complains bitterly about people after Martin's been
corrected for making a false statement or making big claims about his
projects.

Common stuff. Been going on for years.

Join the yahoo group binary stars uncensored. Look through the
archives. See Martin talk to all aliases there who agree that all his
work should be published. Know how to look up the IP addresses? Do
so, see he's talking to himself sometimes. This isn't just lots of
different email addresses being used, he signs himself as different
people, and they even talk to each other at times (like the guy who
asks the other alias if he was they guy who shared a telescope with
him at Ayers Rock one summer. Both supposedly in different
countries. Both using UK modems, although supposedly not from the UK,
and at times having used the same modem, when all is traced through
time).

Everybody must understand that if they want to set up an astronomical
project with rented robotic telescopes, if they present any sort of
programme of their own they are eligible to set up an account for
themselves and be in charge of it themselves and have full access to
what they are paying for.

These "project" groups that contract in are independent of the
renters, if you pay them they get a discount but are in control of the
telescope use.

Some people misunderstand and think it is the rental companies at
fault. Nope, doesn't work that way. There is one group GRAS is
affiliated with in a semiofficial sort of way, RASO, formerly called
RAS (suspiciously sounding like the real RAS, but meaning Remote, not
Royal) which Martin isn't in charge of anymore, but he used to be.

Nevertheless. When spending you money cut out the middle men and
decide how you want to spend it yourself. Or don't bother spending
it. Rentascopes can be very expensive as they are an ongoing
expenditure, not a one off cost.

Don't be fooled by people who write prolific blogs and massive home
webpages all about their science projects. Go straight to where their
published work is listed on those sites. See what those journals are
and check out what level they are at. If you can't find them, or they
sound like small simple journals to you rather than famous long
standing ones, and the work is very sparsely spread over years, how
can this group be achieving the results it claims? Don't listen to
the complaints and cries of lack of fair play. Quite a few amateurs
get published in a wide range of places, regularly. As long as the
work passes muster and is at least part way scientific.

As the guy in the first link says. Beware! It's your money, look
after it.


PS I bet this one gets voted only one star from one user!
.