Dobsonian mount height (raising it)

[MortonH]

Anyone have suggestions for how I can raise the height of my 8" Dobsonian? I'm thinking that I'd like something that I can sit the scope base on top of, but I'm not sure what would work and give reasonable stability.

The reason is that I'd like to be able to observe Mars from my balcony but the scope is currently too low to see over the balcony due to Mars' low altitude.


Morton

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Morton the simplest thing that comes to mind is a sturdy piece of board and three stacks of house bricks to sit it on.

Whatever you use, you dont want it rocking or shaking.

[stringscope (Ian)]

Hi Morton,

Some tima ago I rebuilt a Takahashi MT-160 Newtonian OTA into a Dobsonian configuration. To allow for ease of use by both children and adults, I included an additional base to give a higher EP height. The base can be used as a stool on the "low" configuration. The whole thing is build in plywood.

Cheers,

[astro_nutt]

I made a height booster in the guise of a three-sided box (each corner angled at 60 degrees) about 230mm high and each side about 500mm...and a screw-in furniture foot under each corner to keep it off the ground..cost about $20..
Cheers!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Morton, one thing you didn't explain: How high do you need to go?

[vash (Ashley)]

I built a coffee table when I was in high school solid as, with the amount of glue an nails that thing is a sturdy as a rock, plonk the dob on this and it was the perfect hight. now gets used for the laptop to sit on for auto-guiding an imaging.