I recently bought a cheapo, Chinese, no-name 6" F5 Newtonian to play around with and possibly leave at my parents house to use when I visited them. I was surprised to find it had a fairly decent mirror.
I checked the website of the retailer who sold me the scope (sylvancompany) the other day and they have Newtonian mirrors sizes 4.5, 6, and 8 for 15, 34, and 90 dollars. From what I can tell from the scope I got and through some Internet research, these are neither Synta nor GSO mirrors, but from Hioptic, a company in mainland China. My good mirror might be a total anomaly and all the rest are horrible, but at this price one could take a risk or at least count on the mirror being a decent low power light bucket.
I bet the company is having a terrible time selling these (it's a specialty item) and I'll bet there are a few folks out there who could put together a nice sub-$100 scope with these.
--Ian
I checked the website of the retailer who sold me the scope (sylvancompany) the other day and they have Newtonian mirrors sizes 4.5, 6, and 8 for 15, 34, and 90 dollars. From what I can tell from the scope I got and through some Internet research, these are neither Synta nor GSO mirrors, but from Hioptic, a company in mainland China. My good mirror might be a total anomaly and all the rest are horrible, but at this price one could take a risk or at least count on the mirror being a decent low power light bucket.
I bet the company is having a terrible time selling these (it's a specialty item) and I'll bet there are a few folks out there who could put together a nice sub-$100 scope with these.
--Ian
