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Old 03-03-2013, 10:59 PM
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naskies (Dave)
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 1,865
As far as I'm aware, Peter Ward (Advanced Telescope Supplies) is the only distributor of SBIG products in Australia: http://www.atscope.com.au

I bought the STF-8300M Pro Plus package a few months ago (December) from OptCorp. Shipping for the large pelican case it comes ended up being US$210.85 via UPS. They delivered it two days past the "guaranteed" delivery date, so I ended up getting the shipping fee completely refunded!

As it happens, a manufacturing defect in the cooler manifested within a week of purchase - doh I spoke with OptCorp and they were happy to let me return the entire package as a dead-on-arrival product (albeit at my own expense) and immediately ship out a new unit (even whilst it was in transit).

I decided to send the camera into SBIG for repair instead. They were very responsive and happy to deal with me directly. I shipped the camera itself in a padded box to their Californian headquarters for ~ AUD$65 using Express Post International (standard) - and also paid for the optional insurance (~ AUD $60). They repaired the defect, acknowledged a firmware bug that I found (problem with bias frames) and updated it, and shipped it back to me via UPS for free.

I personally chose to buy from OptCorp because they had immediate stock on hand (no waiting), they were much cheaper, and I received better pre-sales service. However, I know there are many people on IIS who purchased locally from ATS and have been very happy too.

Kudos to SBIG too for being happy to deal with international customers directly and not enforcing a no-export policy on OptCorp.

By the way... since you seem to be referring to the *mono* version of the camera, you may want to check out some of the SBIG packages that include the filter wheel, off-axis guider, guide cam, filters, etc... much cheaper than purchasing them all separately.
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