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For many folks, gear is about subtle differences.

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These differences tend to get blown out of proportion in these types of discussions IMO. On a night of excellent seeing on a particular object a better quality apochromat will separate itself from a less expensive chinese made scope. Some would characterize this as a big difference whereas others would be amazed at how close in performance they really are. I'm on my 5th Takahashi refractor and I find this latest generation of refractors made in China to be very impressive. Considering that Synta (as an example) has been doing this for 10 years and has very modern manufacturing facilities (Zygo Interferometers etc) I'm not surprised at the level of quality they've achieved. Despite the many posts here warning about the variability in quality of these telescopes, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the quality is pretty uniform from sample to sample lately. There are hundreds of user reports and I hear of very few lemons or poor performers these days. The fact that alot of these scopes are in the hands of experienced users gives these informal reviews alot of weight as well.

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