The Beginning of a New Dobsonian

I recently had the chance to acquire some bits left over from a damaged Skywatcher 250mm Flextube dobsonian telescope for not very many pennies. As a result I’m now the proud owner of a the mirror and cell, spider (with secondary) and focuser:

My plan is to rebuild a new dobsonian telescope around them. Not sure I want the focuser yet, but as I wasn’t paying huge amounts it seemed to make sense to have it until such time as I can afford a Feathertouch 🙂 Finding a suitable size solid tube seems to be tough, so I think I’m going to go for a fixed truss design, but thus far I haven’t decided whether it will be motorised, be mounted on a wedge or made any other significant design decisions. I quite like the idea of doing something in a vaguely steampunk style, but on the other hand there’s the desire to just get the thing built and into use. I’m quite tempted to make curved vanes for the secondary mirror, as having started out with refractors I’m not keen on diffraction spikes.

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1 Response to The Beginning of a New Dobsonian

  1. Pingback: My 10″ Dobsonian ‘build’ | www.tanstaafl.co.uk

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