an early summer late afternoon at Bonny Doon

 

We'll call this picture......"Constellation 740"

What can you see with the red one? I assume because of the size you can see other objects?

 

yeah, that red scope is a circa 1990 Coulter Odyssey 10" f/4.5 dobsonian, just about as old as my car.... you can see quite a bit in it with a dark clear sky. the messier catalog of the 100 or so brightest non-stellar objects is easy, then there's 100s more 'bright NGC' galaxies and such you can see. I generally use it between 60 and 140 power, depending on the eyepiece.

 

Did you build that dobsonian, or not? I am considering doing that. Well... I don't think I want to grind the mirrors... but I've come by some eyepieces that I don't have anything to use with.

 

the dobsonian is a mid-late 1980s Coulter Odyssey, they were built and sold by a now defunct company in Southern California. I've rebuilt a fair amount of it already (new mirror cell, new secondary mirror 'spider', new focuser, new finders), and the next step is a new rocker box.

re: building one without grinding a mirror, you could do a lot worse than a "Hubble Optics" mirror from Hong Kong via ebay... demand exceeds supply so you have to keep checking til they have the size and focal length you want. DobSTUFF - Complete Telescopes o sells precut wood kits for building ultralight truss style dobsons in the 8 to 16" diameter range.