I love Astronomy but my god its an expensive hobby. I have not gotten back into it as much as I used to since my 4" reflectors primary mirror was scratched from cleaning. Its very cool that you can build your own, my dream scope is in the 22" range and I would love to get into CCG imaging (my eye site isn't the best and I love computers so why not use it?).

.. it really is! - or can be. I'm not really rich enough to play with the "big boys" (my largest mirror set is 10") but if you forget about GOTO or astrophotography (which seems like the most efficient way to spend money ever invented), you can get a decent 8" reflector on a Dobsonian mount for £279.00 GBP here in the UK (what I should have done). Not no money but not not huge amounts - as long as you can resist buying more and more stuff. But if you're into imaging yes, you need a lot of cash & time to get good results..(though spending hours processing data is sort of my job so it does appeal if I ever have a couple of thousand pounds to spend).

btw, right now my dream scope is a 6" reflector that I can take anywhere and can set up in 5 minutes.

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I am John. John-I-Am.