[Shark Bait (Stu)]

If you are going to stick with a manual dob then setting circles could be very handy when trying to find the faint fuzzy stuff. For this to be useful you would need to have Stellarium or similar with you to get the Altitude / Azimuth coordinates of an object for your location.

There is little cost besides some time required to scribe your own setting circles onto your base. I have set mine up so that they can be removed if the scope is ever sold and the new owner does not want them. The 0 to 90 deg altitude scale came with the scope.

This scope is a Goto but I have done this to test the accuracy of the Goto system. With a little luck the skies will be clear tonight and I can run a good test.

I think giving my scope a rolling base with locking castors has been one of the best mods made so far. It would be a perfect world if all big dobs were sold with wheels.

Edit: You are probably already aware of this, but to get the setting circles to work well, the scope needs to be set up on level ground with the OTA pointing at True North.