Inexpensive, quality telescopes will make huge advances in almost all areas of astronomy. UBC is building a 6 meter (!) telescope using a spinning disk of mercury; similar units of 3 m diameter have been built for only $1 million. Obviously, their pointing is somewhat limited, so they will be used for specific functions such as surveys for space debris or comets and asteroids, but the aperture per dollar figure is amazing!

It was interesting to note that Isaac Newton first proposed the spinning mercury idea, but lacked the technical resources to build one. Imagine what a guy like that could have done with modern facilities!