Second hand kit.... what's your biggest bargain?

[danielbb]

A perfect condition Canon 550D for £130

[lifeonmars]

Bought a Heq5 pro with evostar 102mm ed telescope complete with powertank for £650 sold the telescope for £350 so Heq5 and powertank cost me £300 quite pleased with that!

[JohnC]

Skytee 2 with half pillar and Meade field tripod. £150.

Very very pleased with this purchase.

[JB80]

We have a local street market this weekend in the neighbourhood and I keep thinking that if I go early enough maybe, just maybe someone will have a nice scope at a ridiculously low price for me.

Of course they wont but it's nice to dream.

[JB80]

Well the dream didn't happen, I did manged to get a jigsaw, drill and sander for 25 Euro for when I start my dob build so that's a bonus and a nice fishing rod(silly censor blocked the word, thought that was fixed) but there was nothing astro related there.

[Vega]

A modded 1000D, original packaging + stock lens, 3 months old for £250....

[Moonshane]

I took a risk and bought a 6" f11 1/6PV Orion Optics UK planetary dob off ebay for £112 plus about £40 to drive to and from Southampton (from Manchester) to collect. New it would have been £400. I have spent about the same on it again with a better focuser, flocking, counterweight system, cooling fan and making an equatorial platform but it's a wonderful scope and my prime double star scope. Not many of them around at all. I know of four I think.

non astro was a pillar drill off ebay for £15 which just needed a tinker with the switch.

[c3po]

Adding to my post, I just got 2 iiyama 24" LCD displays from a chap at the recycling site for nowt. He was throwing them away with intermittent power faults. A bit of digging when I got them home showed they needed new capacitors on the DC board. A trip to maplins and £1.65 spent, capacitors replaced and they're good as new!!

[L8-Nite]

I've never been lucky finding bargains but have thought about looking for astro stuff at charity shops.

Has anybody thought the same or actually brought anything astro related from them?

Radders

Yes, and twice at the same shop ! Several months ago, it was an ironing board chair for £ 3, which works great as an observing chair. The second time I visited the shop there were several 1.25" eyepieces in boxes, but no other scope equipment, they were mine for £ 2 each.

Unfortunately, I haven't come across any good Astronomy books.

[L8-Nite]

I'll have to put this into perspective.

The biggest bargain would have to be my 3" Sears 6339-A , which was a scope I could only dream about back when I was a kid in the early 1960s. At the time, it would have cost my Dad a months wages.

Many years later as an adult, I was able to acquire one for the equivalent of two days of my pay.

EDIT: Still have the scope.

[Naz]

Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AF, early model with aperture setting ring in perfect condition for 12€ (about £9) at a vide grenier (car boot) in France, worked a treat on my D200 . Got £60 for it when I raised funds to get the Sigma 70-200 f2.8.

[E621Keith]

My biggest bargain was a 42mm LVW for £100. I bought it on fleabay by accident, I put in a tracker bid at the starting price, but forgot about it until ebay sent me an email saying I've won.

[tea drinker]

Hi Cathal, you're right, it's a smaller group here but still the occassional bargain comes up.

Got a pristine nexstar 8xlt tube with 50mm raci and accesses for 400 euro, pretty happy with that. Always wanted an SCT. So small compared to the 8" newt!

[Rwetherell]

I picked up a brand new Skyliner 200p ota for £75.00 from Wex Photographic. It now sits on a homemade base and has just had a telrad fitted. Yet to be used in anger given the cloudy nights since I bought it 4 weeks ago, but I'm looking forward to trying it out.