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Hi Les,
I have the SM40 scope, which is essentially a slightly better PST. The main things that are better are the focussing and the T-Max tuner. I have played with a PST before and found that the focussing mechanism was not to my liking. Also if you plan to image through it the SM40 is a better investment as it's much easier to set up. Larger aperture will allow higher magnification, but seeing will limit that most days, so I wouldn't go over 60mm.
I can see, and have imaged the following phenomena using the SM40;
Sunspot (well there's only been one visible since I bought the scope)
Active regions
Prominences
Keep an eye out on the secondhand market, I found mine on Astromart back when the dollar was pretty close to parity, so it was cheap compared to Aus. Watch out for secondhand PST's, a lot have the so-called "rust" problem, I'd inspect before buying, which really counts out the US.
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