[renormalised (Carl)]

You know what they're trying to do...get people whose scopes break like that to fork out for a new one. It's an old trick...you want to sell more goods, so you restrict the availability of spare parts to such an extent that in order to keep using their product, the customer has to either wait until the manufacturer decides to sell parts (again, in this case), or they have to resort to buying a new unit altogether. Alright for somewhere like the US, but you found out yourself just how much it's going to cost trying to source the parts out here. Unfair in the extreme.

In the end game, what I would advise people to do, both here and in the US (everywhere for that matter) is to boycott the buying and selling of Celestron telescopes and accessories. Or for that matter, anyone else that did this. Even for the US, making people buy the whole unit for whatever the mounts are worth over there c.f. to the cost of the part USD$106, is nothing more than predatory. What's even worse is this...the cost of the part in the US c.f. to the cost out here. They have the gall to charge (you might as well say) $500 for a part that costs nearly 1/5th that price!!!!. I'd not only report that to the ACCC, I'd make it known publicly what they were doing...over the radio and in the papers. They wouldn't be the only business getting away with blue murder like that, but if you made a big enough fuss and complaint over it, other people would come forward with their tales as well. Too much of this sort of nonsense goes on and people just put up with it!!!!. This sort of nonsense needs to be stopped. It's got nothing to do with the costs or whatever other excuse they come up with...it's just sheer greed.