Hi Bart
You are in the US so it would be worth the plunge as by all means some of the pics these scopes are producing are nice. Here we would be better off buying a CDK as the price is not that much different. In OZ a CDK 12.5" is advertised for 14K AU and a CDK 17" for about 29K AU. Some of the early ads I saw for the HD's were up to 34K AU. Funny how no one is advertising them here now
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Mark