build or not to build

[noakesy]

well i fancy building my own dob 12in but where to start..

[John]

This might help:

Plans for a Dobsonian telescope

[ronin]

Galvoptics supply mirrors but really the first thing to do is price up everything.

A 12" mirror set from Galvoptice is from £420-560.

After that you need a lot of other bits, none of which are cheap.

Would guess that for a 12" Dob self build you are looking at £700-800 minimum.

[Moonshane]

if you are patient you will get a used 12" mirror eventually, and possibly other bits too.

you can grind your own mirror but this is tough and quite tricky for a first project.

I was going to buy a 16-18" mirror set new (around £2k) but bought a used 16" for a fraction of the cost and should be able to put together the whole thing for maybe £1200. The same thing bought new at the same optical quality would be around £3500-4000.

it's a worthwhile project but with a 12" you won't save too much over a used Skywatcher. if you can get a better quality mirror used then you might just about break even.

for me it's also about the pleasure/challenge of doing it yourself.