Yes! While I haven’t done so myself, I looked into home-made telescopes as a way of getting much larger apertures on a budget. There is a whole group of hobby

Yes! While I haven’t done so myself, I looked into home-made telescopes as a way of getting much larger apertures on a budget. There is a whole group of hobbyists making primary mirrors up 80cm diameter for an order of magnitude lower cost than any off-the-shelf telescope with the same dimensions. Of course this takes hundreds of hours of work (fun!) and weeks of waiting while the glass is sent off to be mirror coated.