Quote:
Originally posted by h0ughy
A 16" GS F4.8 dobsonian with BK7 glass with Crayford focuser and it will retail between $2000-$2500 .
This should be available inthe next 3 to 6 months. Just in time for christmas for me, santa will have some trouble stuffing that one down the chimney!
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Hi Houghy,
I assume you are talking about the 16" tubed version here ??? I know of someone currently working with Jim Sheng (from GSO) on a 16" truss scope but that is still on the drawing board and very early days.
I would be counting on the 16" scope for Xmas 2006 and not 2005. Experience tells me the likely timeframe will be more like 12 months if the release of the 16" scopes follows a similar path to the release of the 12" scopes. The 12" scopes actually appeared in the marketplace at least 12 mths after the 1st prototypes were run, and 12 mths after Lee's estimated availability schedule, may have even been longer than 12 mths actually. The early prototypes for the 12" scope were for a 2 piece tube and this caused some major design issues with the scope ultimately being released as a single tube design. I can see this again being an issue with the 16" scope and getting the 2 piece design right may take some time, unless GSO are happy to release the 16" scope as a single tube with the non existent portability of the 16" Meade Starfinder, which I doubt. The other issue that delayed the availability of the 12" scopes was sourcing the blanks for the primary mirrors. GSO had a lot of difficulty sourcing 12" mirror blanks at the time the 12" scopes were due to be released and could not source Asian made 12" blanks. I believe all of the early production scopes used American sourced Pyrex blanks as opposed to Asian sourced BK7 blanks. I am not sure what the sourcing of the 16" blanks will be and whether any issues will present.
Not trying to put a dampener on things but merely to give people some thoughts as to what may be a realistic timeframe for the release of these scopes.
CS-John Bambury