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Hi qld,
Look at the difference in price between the 16" Lightbridge, !6" Bintel and compare them with the most excellent SDM's and other quality scopes such as the Obsessions.
For the considerably smaller purchase price you get quite good optics, but these scopes are mass produced to a price. For anyone willing and able to make suitable modifications, these are excellent propositions to get a reasonable aperture.
When I purchased my 16" Meade 13 yrs ago all I wanted were the mirrors but Meade, at that stage would only sell scopes as a complete unit. Because of that I purchase the scope as a Dob and then designed and built a German Eq mount to put it on.
I then designed and built my own 27 point primary mirror cell and secondary mirror mount and made significant modifications to how the focuser mounted on the tube. It took about 6 mths to sort it out but everyone that has visited my observatory since would vouch for the quality of the images the modified scope produces.
Regards
Trevor
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