Viktor_L

@Tony Acorn I understand - even for me this 10 inch dob is right at the limit of the weight I'm willing to deal with! This telescope gets taken to a lot of different places so I have to carry it in and out. I think any larger aperture is out of the question for me! @paulastro I read about many people buying smaller StarSense telescopes and moving over the StarSense module to a Dobsonian. I originally thought of doing the same, until I read about people making DIY DSCs. In reality it was a lot of trouble and time spent, and I probably did not save much with this route compared to buying a small StarSense scope

Wow, I didn't expect such a warm welcome, thanks so much! I do recognize I may have overdone it with this telescope, and my wife was trying to convince me to start smaller as I've been known to abandon hobbies :D. This one is different though. The first time I had the scope out I was up all night trying to find as many as I can of the objects in Sky Safari's Tonight's Best list. Then a couple of hours before sunrise, Saturn came up, and seeing it for the first time is probably the second best nature experience of my life, second only to seeing the April 2024 total eclipse (which is actually what started my interest in the celestial). A crescent moon followed shortly after, and seeing the craters in such detail was just incredible. Nothing prepares you for the experience. Since then I've been quite addicted. I would use the scope daily if I could but because of weather, and the fact that I have to drive quite a bit to get reasonably dark skies mean that I could realistically only do it every couple of weeks. Wish there were darker skies close to me - had to drive 12 hours total to get to Bortle 2 at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania and 7 hours total to get to Bortle 3 (I think?) in the Catskills in New York. Just last weekend was the first time I saw Jupiter and Mars. I think I saw Neptune and Uranus too but could not resolve the disc using 10mm eyepeice, so I couldn't be sure. I am sure you guys understand the feeling when you started out!

Hi all, Viktor here, just started on the path of amateur astronomy 2 months ago with the purchase of an Explore Scientific Hybrid 10" dobsonian, pictured below. I sewed a basic shroud for it (not going to spend 80 dollars on a piece of cloth!), rotated the upper tube 45 degrees, and added a custom digital setting circle for it with 3d printed encoder mounts. Altitude encoder is the device mounted on the side bearing; the circuitry, built around an ESP32, is that blue thing at the back (wrapped in painter's tape for now) I've used the telescope a fair bit, and intend to use it a lot more! Sharing a photo I took of the moon early this month, using a DSLR attached to the focuser with a Baader MPCC and a T-ring adapter, and using prime focus: Looking forward to contributing to and learning from this forum