[Wavytone]

Greg,

I know of an 9" observatory refractor - and its for sale too - that fits that description - it has folded coude optics with a weighted OTA so that virtually none of it hangs below the dec axis, and the focus is brought out down the polar axis at desk height.

Ideal, in some respects.

The snag is, it's an old achromatic airspaced doublet, f/15 probably made in the 1960's from the look of the mount, so I'd bet its not coated either. The collective light losses from 4 mirrors and the uncoated doublet would be fairly bad so I didn't mention this before.

Adding a modern coated APO objective, rejigging the mirrors for a faster lens, and shortening the OTA would however blow the budget, I'm sure.

Marks suggestion re the 20" Meade Max is probably closer to the money BUT - and it's a big BUT - poses exactly the same issues as the 16" Meade does now - ie complex proprietary hardware and electronics that probably won't last 10 years - and the question of support is mighty interesting as Meade's future looks decidedly shaky. Perhaps ok for an amateur who will give it relatively light use and probably won't keep it 10 years, but its not a long term solution for observatory use.

In some respects this raises the question whether its actually cheaper over a long period - say 50+ years - to buy cheap amateur grade telescopes and consider them disposable, replacing them every 10 years to take advantage of the current technology, vs buying one considerably more expensive telescope that might last this kind of time frame.