Telescope Dobsonian base

The Telescope Dobsonian is a great scope, and German Equatorial Telescope Mounts are the kind for astronomy; they are not a necessity! As stated earlier, the equatorial mount is great for astrophotography and they are very accurate. They track the stars very easily and can be made to track automatically by installing a simple clock drive type motor.

They German equatorial mount is also very difficult to build or expensive to buy! I have seen many an astronomer have more money in a good equatorial mount than the OTA.

Thus the design of the base for the telescope Dobsonian style! You can take a Newtonian reflector and make a great Alt-Azmuth base for it with a little plywood, a few fasteners and some neoprene or plastic for bearings.

Technically the telescope Dobsonian style is an Alt Azimuth style telescope mount.

That is “Alt” meaning altitude and Azimuth meaning back and forth; Up, down, back and forth….It’s hard to get more simple than that!

There are no motors or gears, knobs, cables, batteries, computers or any other mechanical or techie stuff to break or confuse you! You are the computer, the motor and everything else with a telescope Dobsonian style!

The telescope Dobsonian style is a very affordable system that allows any body with the interest to enjoy a large diameter telescope!

You can build the telescope Dobsonian style many, many, different ways from fancy to plain!

Here you can notice the eyepiece holders and the springs to hold the scope in place you can also adjust the friction with these springs to add a little stickiness to the scope if necessary. You can put a lot of useful items on a Dobsonian mount

These mounts are simplistic in design, that is what makes them so popular and so perfect for the amateur astronomer. The telescope Dobsonian is probably the best telescope for the beginning astronomer. They come in any size from 3 inch diameter to 3 foot diameter for the amateur astronomer. You can get the telescope Dobsonian in any price range to fit any lifestyle.

Truthfully if you really want to learn astronomy and where things are out there, a telescope Dobsonian style is your best bet. Combined with a Telrad and a planisphere you will learn to “spot” everything in the sky! Heck, Messier gave us his list with a telescope that would make one of today’s ten dollar plastic scopes look good!

I personally have two Dobsonian telescopes. One of them I take to star parties that we do at schools or at camp sites with our club. It is an old Coulter telescope Dobsonian style with a particle board base and bathroom piping for a focuser. You can laugh, I do, but this old scope is a work horse and a half. It’s a great little eight inch Dobsonian that is built like a Mack truck. The Kids at these star parties seriously beat that old dob to death! Sounds terrible I know but to be honest I encourage it! I want them to get in there and move that old scope around. Left to them selves I have found that kids will really take to astronomy, once the intimidation is gone and they are not afraid of breaking the telescope. They will get into competitions with each other on who can find objects in the sky first.

Out of the eight telescopes I own I use my old telescope Dobsonian the most. It is a tube type OTA with a suitcase handle on the tube and two on the rocker (base) It breaks down into two parts and fits into any vehicle I can think of. The tube is only 4 foot long and the base is about 2 foot by 2 foot.

John Dobson didn't invent the Alt-Az mount; to the contrary it had been in use for hundreds of years before he was around..The most popular use for the same type mount is pretty obvious if you look at the telescope Dobsonian style you will notice that it looks a lot like cannon with out wheels and a tow hitch.

As a matter of fact one member in our club here in San Diego tells a story of being questioned by the local police after a concerned citizen reported seeing someone with cannon in the park next to their house.

The mount that Dobson came up with was primarily to make it affordable and practical to have a portable large diameter telescope on the sidewalks of San Francisco!

The Telescope Dobsonian Base

The film is a little long but its fun if you give it a chance