NEAF Discount

Did you stop by our booth and pick up a business card, flyer, or brochure with our discount sticker on it? Super! Feel free to use it on almost any regular priced merchandise in our store. This discount will not apply to certain items that are already marked down such as clearance or sale items, and custom order items such as the Fornax Mounts 50/100/150/200 series. This discount cannot be combined with other discounts, sales or offers. Offer valid on regular-price merchandise only. One use per customer, offer valid until May 31st, 2023.

Astro Treasure Hunt

We're hoping you'll have fun with this one! The purpose here is participation, not perfection. Whether you're out there with a 17" CDK or simply your iPhone you're participating in astrophotography and amateur astronomy and that's the point. I repeat: do not let any notion that your photos won't be good enough stop you from participating! This treasure hunt is about getting out under the stars, it's not a competition. Even the simplest astrophotos are amazing feats of human ingenuity, and there are thousands of long-gone astronomers from antiquity that would be absolutely floored just to have the ability to take a blurry phone photo of the Milky Way.

The treasure hunt objects were chosen such that you should be able to complete it even if all you have access to is a contemporary smartphone. Wide field with your phone is a-ok, as are tracked and stacked deep sky photos. As long as the object or constellation in question is clearly visible. Since the point is to encourage you to get out there this spring/summer we want you to use photos you've taken in 2023, not just things you've pulled from the archive. That said, we'll allow you to use up to two photos taken prior to this year (other than for the final object listed below), but we really hope you'll participate within the spirit of the treasure hunt. The final stipulation is in place to make sure that no one can simply plumb their photo archives for the appropriate objects: ALL participants must include a photo of Jupiter at the feet of the constellation Aries, taken during Spring/Summer 2023. Which means that we shouldn't be receiving any completed submissions until at least mid-June or early July 2023. Heard?

And I hope that it's redundant to say this, but all images must be taken by YOU. No "borrowing" images that were created by other people, please and thanks.

Successful treasure hunts can be submitted in any way that works, although preferred methods would be something along the lines of: set up an AstroBin gallery (the free "trial" will get you a gallery of up to 10 images, more than enough for this purpose), an Instagram album post, a Flickr gallery if that's still a thing. Maybe you have your own website and you want to post a gallery there. As long as it can be accessed freely that's fine. Depending on levels of participation, and with prior approval from interested participants, we may also post a list of links to people's galleries. We shall see!

And regarding the carrot at the end of this, we'll allow that discount to be used on any purchase of regular-price merchandise, as long as it doesn't put us in the red. Be it a Fornax LighTrack II, a William Optics RedCat 71, a QHY cooled CMOS camera, what have you. You may also use this discount on select pre- or special-orders of any products from our suppliers that we may not have in stock, depending on if we have a pending order with said supplier, and subject to the same criteria as in stock merchandise. Valid only on orders with pre-tax/shipping subtotals >$699 CAD. One use per customer, discount cannot be combined with other discounts, sales, or offers. Offer valid until September 23rd, 2023.