Galileoscope Update: Galileoscope Orders

25 March 2009

As announced last month by the IYA2009 Secretariat, orders for the Galileoscope are now being taken at www.galileoscope.org, and delivery of telescope kits will commence in late April. We've received many queries from SPoCs asking if they need to place a new order now, or if the earlier pre-order will suffice. The answer is, YOU NEED TO PLACE A NEW ORDER NOW (if you haven't already done so); filling out the pre-order form was NOT the same as placing an actual order.

You can order small numbers of Galileoscopes with payment by credit card or PayPal at www.galileoscope.org. The cost is US$15 per kit plus shipping by postal/parcel service. But that is not the best way for SPoCs to order.

SPoCs, museums, planetariums, schools, astronomy clubs, and other institutions wishing to order 100 or more Galileoscopes can get a discounted price of US$12.50 per kit, save on shipping via bulk freight service, and pay by purchase order. To initiate a large order of 100+ kits, if you haven't already done so, please fill out the Request for Quotation form at https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/sites/galileoscope.org.gs/files/Galileoscope-RFQ.doc and send it by e-mail to freight@galileoscope.org.

We know that many SPoCs and other customers have encountered problems when placing orders and/or have been frustrated by a lack of responsiveness from the Galileoscope team. We sincerely apologize for these inconveniences. There are several explanations. First and foremost, this is a BIG project run by a SMALL, ALL-VOLUNTEER staff; we're diligently following up on all issues, but it's taking longer than any of us would like. Second, despite extensive prelaunch testing, we discovered some configuration problems with our website only after it went live; as a result, some customers didn't receive e-mail confirmations of their orders -- we will manually re-send these confirmations as soon as we can track them all down. Third, the service we're using to approve credit-card transactions was too restrictive and rejected many valid international credit cards; if you tried to place an order and had your credit card refused, please try again -- your credit card should be approved now.

More information about the Galileoscope project, including complete specifications and links to free educational materials, is available at www.galileoscope.org. Remember, Galileoscopes will begin shipping to customers in late April 2009.

For the Galileoscope team,

      Dr. Rick Fienberg
      IYA2009 Galileoscope Task Group Chair
      AAS Deputy Press Officer
      rfienberg@galileoscope.org