Good topic. Dave, I think most of the low-end Celestron and Meade product is imported. Only the larger SCT's & Maks are made in the US. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong!)Too, they don't want to leave any niche untouched. They know some people will buy "department-store" telescopes without doing the homework, so they supply that market also. John, I applaud you for doing the consumer research first. Obviously you've given this a lot more thought than I originally thought, please accept my apology. You are very firm on your criteria and I can't question that! My whole relationship with commercial astronomy & products is strained at best, with a few exceptions. Going to a few star-parties is very good advice. Get hands-on experience with a variety of makes and models. Patrick, you get up here in the hotseat with Brent and I. You've done more imaging than about anyone I know, both emulsion-based and CCD, and done most of it with SCT's. What are you doing right now? Positional astronomy mostly? Deep imaging? What can you tell us about your experience with this equipment? Rich, thanks for that explanation. Does the telescope look for you, too? ;) Were I to come up with a user-friendly high-tech system, it might look like this: f/5 to f/7 Dob with "flying align"-type drivers, like the DobDriver2000. Digital setting circles. Maybe a database, if I could define it. For imaging I'd use a field de-rotator. OR, same Dob on an equatorial platform. No de-rotator needed, but declination only lines-up with altitude motion near the meridian. You'd have to polar-align the platform, but that could be done with a Telrad-type sight in about ten seconds. No need to align with the DobDriver. The digital circles do require initialization on 2 or 3 stars. Too much work? C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/