where to buy a 12" f/4.5 OTA??

[AlexN]

Im looking for a 12" newtonian tube... Everywhere I've checked sells 12s on eq mounts or on dob bases, and the cost of the mount is added in harshly...

Ie. why is a 12" dob $700 but a 10" SW OTA $1100???

Makes little sense to me.....

Anyone here go the answer?

[mick pinner]

l've often wondered that myself.

[netwolf]

Alex,
I too have looked at buying a 10" F4.7 OTA similar to the one Eric uses. And for some strange reason the price of this OTA is unreasonably high for no good reason. And as you pointed out the price does not compare to other scopes.
Especially when in the US you can get it for 500$ USD
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=reflectors/~pcategory=telescopes/~product_id=09959

Now the excuse of adding shipping an GST does not apply here becasue the source for this scope is China, so the US retail price would include shipping from China to US and I can not imagine the price to ship from China to Australia is more. But the Celestron and Skywatcher are made by Synta and I am guessing the importer is Expert Vision. And quiet likely the source of the high price is this distributor. As with all things Celestron in this Country we seem to pay a unreasonably higher price.

Regards
Fahim

[AlexN]

Indeed.

I've almost gotten to the point of biting the bullet and buying a 12" dob and not even bothering to pull the base out of the box... Price wise, its worth it...

I've noticed with the skywatcher series, the OTA on its own is actually a different OTA, the 8" is F/5 while the Dob is F/6... But surely this cant make the OTA worth $250 more than what the dob is worth including base..

[Satchmo]

It would be about volume. They make far more dobs in mass production and bringing in a container load of dobs will also far cheaper per unit than bringing in a special order low production run tube for an EQ mount.