Shocking price rises!!??

[SamAndrew]

I think the Sky Watcher price increases are in line with inflation, they've just chosen to do ten years worth of inflation rises in one hit 😄

I paid £549 for a Quattro 10S in 2011. It is now £729. 33% increase

2.5% inflation for ten years = £702. So not far off.

 

[Kimboman]

 interesting reading ,when I (now an old codger) first acquired the astronomy bug any equipment was very expensive this was 60 years ago.

I too like Nigella purchased a 6inch newtonium from fuller scopes which was about 12times my weekly wage,I along with a few likeminded enthusiasts made most of our equipment.

We purchased ex wd lenses and mounted them into tubes I still have and use these eyepieces no hobby is cheap but back then the range of equipment  was not available as is now the case.

My favourite tripod is a wood and brass ex theodolite one solid as a rock . But as the song goes (things can only get better)

[Deadlake]

16 hours ago, Louis D said:

I'm thinking of getting a standby generator for the house instead of more astro gear since we lost power for days during the winter storm two weeks ago.

I once plotted get a PHEV. You can run the power in reverse and power the house from the car. That way you don't have some machinery hanging around that you don't know its going to work until it's too late.

[Louis D]

3 hours ago, Deadlake said:

I once plotted get a PHEV. You can run the power in reverse and power the house from the car. That way you don't have some machinery hanging around that you don't know its going to work until it's too late.

That might work for short term outages, but not for days long outages.  Our gas stations were running out of fuel due to lack of tanker truck deliveries because of the icy roads.

Modern generators automatically start and run diagnostics weekly, alerting you via wireless connection if there's an issue.  The biggest issues I've read about are when the starter battery dies and this check can't happen and making sure to have the engine oil changed/maintained.  I'm not concerned about natural gas not making it to our house because we had a continuous supply despite it not making it to all the critical NG generators.  Maybe we just got lucky?

I've read proposals to use PEVs in a distributed manner to store electricity generated at night for use in the daytime.  Of course, this presumes you don't want to use that electricity to actually drive somewhere and back each day.

[Louis D]

17 hours ago, SamAndrew said:

I think the Sky Watcher price increases are in line with inflation, they've just chosen to do ten years worth of inflation rises in one hit 😄

I paid £549 for a Quattro 10S in 2011. It is now £729. 33% increase

2.5% inflation for ten years = £702. So not far off.

 

By keeping prices low for two decades, they've managed to push out almost all non-Chinese competition.  Now they can raise their prices to a sustainable level for themselves.  This is also happening in solar cells and rare earth metals production.

[Nigella Bryant]

30 minutes ago, Louis D said:

By keeping prices low for two decades, they've managed to push out almost all non-Chinese competition.  Now they can raise their prices to a sustainable level for themselves.  This is also happening in solar cells and rare earth metals production.

Probably other manufacturers will step in, perhaps UK built scope's, mount's like in the 70's. 

[Deadlake]

37 minutes ago, Louis D said:

That might work for short term outages, but not for days long outages.  Our gas stations were running out of fuel due to lack of tanker truck deliveries because of the icy roads.

Modern generators automatically start and run diagnostics weekly, alerting you via wireless connection if there's an issue.  The biggest issues I've read about are when the starter battery dies and this check can't happen and making sure to have the engine oil changed/maintained.  I'm not concerned about natural gas not making it to our house because we had a continuous supply despite it not making it to all the critical NG generators.  Maybe we just got lucky?

I've read proposals to use PEVs in a distributed manner to store electricity generated at night for use in the daytime.  Of course, this presumes you don't want to use that electricity to actually drive somewhere and back each day.

I didn't plan for a long outage, the longest our village has been without electricity is a week over xmas five years ago. Luckily it was just half the village, the pubs where still operational and cooked everyones xmas lunch where they could. Having a second car helps if one is used as a generator. Interesting idea about using PHEVS to generate energy to store overnight. 

[Deadlake]

6 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Probably other manufacturers will step in, perhaps UK built scope's, mount's like in the 70's. 

The cost of living is on the up as well in the Far East, I suspect in the end it will meet in the middle. Issue is the twenty/thirty years in between where an equilibrium was being found.

[kirkster501]

We have so many clouded out nights in the UK - 99% of the winter - that we spend more time looking online at telescopes than we do looking through them, eye or camera...

[mikeDnight]

I just stumbled across the current price of an NP101 IS (£4,449), which means TV have hiked their price for this scope by more than £1,300 in 12 years. As a visual scope, Televue will have you believe that the NP101 IS is good at everything, including lunar and planetary performer, but mine had the stuffing knocked out of it by the same aperture, much cheaper Vixen's, Tak's and SW ED's, and so I sold it after owning it for less than a year. So has this just happened or has it been a gradual stealth attack?  

[DAVE AMENDALL]

On 13/02/2021 at 15:14, david_taurus83 said:

Thankfully I have all the astro equipment I should ever need with no intention of spending another penny! Yep, that's me sorted!! 🤣🤣🤣

Me Too! It's been a long hard struggle getting it and has taken a while to cobble it all together. Be careful not to drop anything or get it nicked. Replacements will be for ever expensive,  and shortages imminent

[Earl]

Try finding an Nvida 2060 its just as bad let alone the 30xx range

[Deadlake]

2 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I just stumbled across the current price of an NP101 IS (£4,449), which means TV have hiked their price for this scope by more than £1,300 in 12 years. As a visual scope, Televue will have you believe that the NP101 IS is good at everything, including lunar and planetary performer, but mine had the stuffing knocked out of it by the same aperture, much cheaper Vixen's, Tak's and SW ED's, and so I sold it after owning it for less than a year. So has this just happened or has it been a gradual stealth attack?  

Seen how much Celestron SCT (£300-400) have gone up?

By the way your are not the only one that has said the NP101 is not a keeper, I've heard that before.

[Shimrod]

55 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

Seen how much Celestron SCT (£300-400) have gone up?

By the way your are not the only one that has said the NP101 is not a keeper, I've heard that before.

The Edge 8" on an AVX is £2249 (but comes with a ZWO 120 camera) - that's only £200 more than I paid in 2019, and only £50 if you count the cost of the camera.

[Deadlake]

24 minutes ago, Shimrod said:

The Edge 8" on an AVX is £2249 (but comes with a ZWO 120 camera) - that's only £200 more than I paid in 2019, and only £50 if you count the cost of the camera.

Edge 11 I believe was £3750 now £4249 for instance, the C11 has gone up £300.

[Arneb]

18 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

I just stumbled across the current price of an NP101 IS (£4,449), which means TV have hiked their price for this scope by more than £1,300 in 12 years. As a visual scope, Televue will have you believe that the NP101 IS is good at everything, including lunar and planetary performer, but mine had the stuffing knocked out of it by the same aperture, much cheaper Vixen's, Tak's and SW ED's, and so I sold it after owning it for less than a year. So has this just happened or has it been a gradual stealth attack?  

Comparing past prices with current ones can be an emotional experience!! Some have fared quite well (Synta manufactured scopes - until recently at least!). Other's, on the face of it, appear to compare less favourably. However, using the np101is as an example, inflation and currency fluctuations could be responsible for a large chunk of that. According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator (inflation averaged at 2.6% per year) that increase is about inline with inflation even before taking into account any weakening of GBP over that time or changes to costs outside of a manufacturer's control.

Other scopes/brands seem to have seen similar rises. I have a TruTek pricelist from 2014 and a Tak TSA-120 was £2977 for the OTA back then. Today the same OTA is £3953. Nikon DSLR lenses have also seen significant increases in the last 5 years or so too.

The real problem I find is it makes justifying new gear purchases to my wife 2.6% harder every year...

[Stu1smartcookie]

42 minutes ago, Arneb said:

The real problem I find is it makes justifying new gear purchases to my wife 2.6% harder every year...

And , in a nutshell ... that is the REAL problem lol  for most of us .

 

[Deadlake]

If you add VAT to these prices its quite a shocker what the UK price is:

https://www.kyoei-osaka.jp/SHOP/takahashi-tsa120-125s.html

I don't know how much shipping would be, UK has a trade deal with Japan, same terms as before with EU so that should not be a shocker.

Tak is a lot cheaper than say Vixen for UK prices, also a little funny that Vixen mounts are bundled with Tak scopes. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

20 hours ago, Earl said:

Try finding an Nvida 2060 its just as bad let alone the 30xx range

Good point. Astronomy isn't the only area affected by the logistical problems. Luckily I upgraded our two gaming pc graphics cards before the pandemic.

Pre Christmas 2020 finding a decent AMD cpu to replace my son's Ryzen 1600 was difficult. I ended up settling for a 3600XT. The new Ryzen 5600 was non existent unless one was prepared to pay a ridiculous price.

Likewise the Playstation 5 debacle. We still haven't got one despite joining mailing lists etc.

I'm surprised there are not more shortages of Chinese made tech. including the humble television.

[wesdon1]

On 02/03/2021 at 12:18, Adam J said:

With the pound getting stronger against the dollar and most of this stuff coming from outside the EU it can only be increased shipping costs as mentioned by FLO recently. But if demand if high that's going to always push up prices, so given supply is low this is to be expected really.

Yes I've since contacted many suppliers in Asia, and spoken to various retailers in UK and Europe, and basically what you say is what is actually happening. Plus also in Asia, there has been massive effects on staffing levels and interruptions to manufacturing and distribution of essential materials needed to produce not just Telescopes, but many other products. This Pandemic has really gotten us by the proverbial's, unfortunately. Wes.

[wesdon1]

On 02/03/2021 at 22:35, SamAndrew said:

I think the Sky Watcher price increases are in line with inflation, they've just chosen to do ten years worth of inflation rises in one hit 😄

I paid £549 for a Quattro 10S in 2011. It is now £729. 33% increase

2.5% inflation for ten years = £702. So not far off.

 

Thankyou! Your post/comments clearly demonstrate what i been complaining about! I was looking on eBay practically daily, and at Telescope retailer's daily online, for many months while i was saving up a lot of money to buy a new SCT 9.25 inch, Quality EP's, Ha Filters, Mono Camera, Colour Camera, Adapters, basically a massive hoard of equipment, to start doing some serious Astrophotography and the ability to do quality visual also. Then this huge price increase, across the board, just happened without warning!!?? Suddenly, my projected total costs went from £4'100 to £6'450 !!?? I am still so bitter because i was only 1 week away from buying everything at the costs i had been planning for for months!!?? Wes. 

[billhinge]

Hardly without warning, I think it was pretty obvious that with Brexit tarrifs  and covid supply chain issues that prices would go up. I'm surprised they didn't go up sooner, I assume they will go up more  next year as the post covid financial hangover rumbles on.

I'm not  averse to spreading out large purchases on credit cards  over 3  or 4 months but I generally pay them off, bought everything I thought I may need  before December

I bought a lot  of new stuff last year as I hope to retire in  a year or two 

Maybe it's an age thing? back in the 70's and 80's  you expected rising prices  and high interest rates, from the 90's onward  people had it "lucky",   cheap quality imports and  relatively low  inflation/interest rates ?

 

 

[wesdon1]

On 24/03/2021 at 17:44, billhinge said:

Hardly without warning, I think it was pretty obvious that with Brexit tarrifs  and covid supply chain issues that prices would go up. I'm surprised they didn't go up sooner, I assume they will go up more  next year as the post covid financial hangover rumbles on.

I'm not  averse to spreading out large purchases on credit cards  over 3  or 4 months but I generally pay them off, bought everything I thought I may need  before December

I bought a lot  of new stuff last year as I hope to retire in  a year or two 

Maybe it's an age thing? back in the 70's and 80's  you expected rising prices  and high interest rates, from the 90's onward  people had it "lucky",   cheap quality imports and  relatively low  inflation/interest rates ?

 

 

Call me naïve, but i honestly didn't see the price rises coming, despite covid...? Wes.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

1 hour ago, wesdon1 said:

Call me naïve, but i honestly didn't see the price rises coming, despite covid...? Wes.

Just a bit... but tbh I wasn't expecting +30% and it's doubtful the average consumer really expected that much of a hike either.

[billhinge]

I  blame TV or lack of now. Back  in the 70's they did good  educational tv, one of  the  unsung goodies was Weekend World on Sunday 12.00 lunchtime with Peter Jay and Brian Walden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend_World

Even as kid I  was interested in  velocity of money, M0 to M4 money supply, Keynesian economics models vs gold standard, and rising costs of materials at the factory gates, domino theory etc 🙂 

guess   it influenced me to expect price rises - never  let a good crisis go  to  waste (they even put prices up when they changed from  old money to decimal ;-(