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Sorry but I cant resist this one. Its like a moth to a flame.
If you want Warranty then there are still ways to get this with US purchases. One example is Priceusa (no affiliation with me) offer Shipping return insurance to help with exactly this type of situation. Other similar freight forwarding setups would no doubt offer similar solutions.
From what I know these scopes are made in China so I would assume the ship direct from China to Australia not via USA. But when comparing many people add Shipping costs on top of the USA price i dont think this is accurate as the US price would include shipping from China to USA.
So the only variation is 10% GST plus overhead of operating in Australia with smaller market vs USA. Still other manufactures like Takahahia, Vixen seem to offer there products in Australia at similar prices to that which are offered in USA. Recently recall a thread where someone had bought a Tak scope locally rather than from USA as the price was better.
Celestron 8" HD AUS 2500 USA 1300 diff of 1200
Celestron 11" HD AUS 5700 USA 3400 diff of 2300
Celestron 14" HD AUS 9000 USA 5800 diff of 3200
This is better than in the past but still high. I have raised this directly with Celestron and they have advised this is totally up to the local distributor. And they refuse to comment on this.
What I do find interesting is Synta/Skywatcher products seem to recently be more in line with US pricing. The AZ-EQ6 , 2299 USA and locally 2299. How is this possible?
Synta own Celestron and I would assume ship direct to Australia from China. And I would imagine an EQ6 mount weighs quiet a bit more than most of the afore mentioned OTA's.
Food for thought.
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