Hi,
I have been looking at getting a 10" or 12" dob with crayford focuser and fan etc ie a LTD or premium setup.
I have been getting prices from the two main suppliers that i am aware of. Andrews Communication and just recently Bintel.
Andrews units: 10"
GS-880-BK7-CRF and the 12" GS-980-BK7-CRF
Bintel's units: 10" Bintel BT 252 Premium and the 12" Bintel BT 302
I am very impressed with both companies level of customer service. You can hear the level of excitement in Lee Andrew's voice when he talks on the phone to you (it is very infectious) and as you can see from the quoted email back from Bintel, they know their stuff and obviously are keen to make sure the after sales side of things is spot on.
In my mind it comes down to this. Both suppliers have the same scope, take freight out of the equation and it seems that if you are looking at price only with good but inexpensive eye pieces, then Andrews is the way to go. If you want a unit that has been reassembled in Australia, is already star tested and collimated for your piece of mind and some heavy duty backup in terms of service, then Bintel is the way to go. Bintel also seem to be the better of the two in terms of the eyepieces in the range of good to the very best.
The following email is from Bintel:
"...the Bintel Dobsonians are manufactured by Guan Sheng, However... our telescopes are completely disassembled and reassembled by one of our telescope technicians. The Primary mirror is removed and spotted. The secondary Mirror and spider are set and the focuser is squared to the tube to ensure that the optical path is correct. The telescope is then collimated and star tested. It takes us a little more time to do these tests to the telescope but we are very confident that they will work as expected when the customer takes it out to use it. Our scopes include a full instruction manual written in store by one of our technical staff.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
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Collimation can be done in one of two ways.<o:p></o:p>
A laser collimator will allow you to collimate both the primary and secondary mirror, however, this will only be an optical collimation not Mechanical collimation. <o:p></o:p>
The collimation tool that we stock is a combined Sight tube / <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cheshire</st1:place></st1:City> eyepiece and can be used to do a full Optical / Mechanical Collimation. They cost $75-00.<o:p></o:p>
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We stock many different brands of eyepieces from the budget GSO plossls and SVs through the Meade Series 4000 and Series 5000 Plossls, Super Wides and Ultra Wides to the TeleVue which are without exception the best eyepieces on the market. They include the Televue Plossl, Radian, Panoptic and Nagler.<o:p></o:p>
Budget Plossl Eyepieces start at $49-00, whilst high end Naglers can cost as much as $950-00. There are very good reasons why the more expensive eyepieces are so much more expensive. You get what you pay for.<o:p></o:p>
Meade Series 4000 Plossls are $89-00 each<o:p></o:p>
Meade Series 5000 Plossls start at $145-00 up to 20mm the $160-00 for the 26mm.<o:p></o:p>
Both of these series of eyepieces are far superior to the GSO eyepieces.<o:p></o:p>
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The Orion Shorty Plus Barlow is one of the best apochromatic barlows on the market for Newtonian telescopes and is $138-00.<o:p></o:p>
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At Bintel our staff include some of the most experienced astronomers in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region>, our telescope technicians are factory trained in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> to be able to service any type of telescope and are always available to offer the best advice to our customers.
With the wealth of expertise we have we can offer the best after sales service in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
I hope that this information is helpful to you...."
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For mine, I am thinking of going Andrew's way as i would like to learn the hard way, in terms of having to do the star test and then collimation. I will get my free series 500 eye pieces, but i will then buy the collimation (mechanical and optical) and barlows and superwides from Bintel as time goes on.
Hope this helps, either way i know what i am paying for. Neither came across as used car saleman, and I would recommend both!