4.5" Dobsonian telescope - free to good home - all gone!!

[janoskiss]

I have a little scope that needs a new home. It is a 114mm f7.9 Newtonian on a home made Dob mount + 2 plossl eyepieces.

The plossls are very usable but the scope could do with some better eyepieces. Anyone want to donate some Andrews 500s to a good cause, and maybe a cheap barlow??

This is what you get:

- 114mm optical tube assembly with a de-pinched and centre-spotted primary mirror
- 30mm and 10mm plossl eyepieces for 30x and 90x magnifications
- Dobsonian mount with short and tall bases and removable OTA; ultra smooth motion with vinyl LP on furniture sliders for azimuth (felt only on the short base); friction strap for balance control when changing eyepieces
- removable tray for bottom of tall base for stabilising weights. (weight not included, use a brick, bag of sand or anything heavy)
- film canister with pinhole in base and cap (this is all you need to collimate the scope very easily; I can show you how)

This would make a great kids scope. The moon looks fantastic at high magnification. Saturn's rings, banding on Jupiter and the moons of Jupiter are easy to see. Cassini would be quite a feat though. Star clusters and bright nebulae also look nice.

And it's all FREE!!! But if you can afford it, you might like to make a donation to iceinspace.

Pick-up only.

... been picked up.

[Mikezoom]

Steve, PM'ed you.

[EzyStyles]

wil be interested steve. will be happy to come around anytime :)

[janoskiss]

PM'd you back, Mike. ;) Scope is still free to good home. To give you an idea of optical performance: you will probably see no more with this 114mm Newt than you would with a good 70mm long-tube achromat. But the dob mount will be a lot more user-friendly than a wobbly EQ mount you might get with a small aperture refractor.

[janoskiss]

I've just been outside with this scope, to assess how much my latest tweaks improved performance.

At 30x it is very pleasing, with well defined stars. At 90x, it is hard to get a good focus on bright stars, but I can see the rings of Saturn more distinctly than ever before through this scope and I can easily see a few moons of Saturn as well. :) OTOH, my 60mm f11.7 still outperforms this scope. :(

The main factor degrading optical performance is that the secondary mirror is too small for the primary even though the secondary obstruction is very large (twice the diameter of the mirror itself). The effective aperture is probably around 90-100mm minus a large central obstruction and thick spider vanes.

But it is still exciting to use this scope; it does a good job at low magnifications and the Dob mount makes it very usable. You can also take it to the beach to close-in on ships/whales/seals ... far out at sea.

[EzyStyles]

im surprised that you can see a few moon's on saturn with this scope??? i can't even see any moons on my 8" :( did you get my pm btw?

[Starkler]

What a little ripper :thumbsup:

[janoskiss]

Little dobbie is now gone! :( To a better place I hope. :prey:

[Mikezoom]

As long as it is a happy ending Steve...! ;)

Mike.B.

[EzyStyles]

Steve with the big heart was kind enough to offer his beloved dobbie to me inwhich case im going to pass it to my gf for her to learn on. Don't worry steve, i'll take good care of it, she won't get a scratch ;)

Many thanks. The money will be donated to this wonderful forum :)

[EzyStyles]

she said a big thanks btw too :)

[Mikezoom]

Sign her up Ezy. ;)

Mike.B.

[janoskiss]

Good stuff! Thanks. ;)