my new toy

[Daniel-K]

went to pick this 16inch dob up today very nice indeed already made my dew shield took most of the camping mat! got some carbon fiber vinyl for the finder coming in the post as well as my flocking sheets and better springs for the collimation adjusters waiting for some sort of gap in clouds. collimation was easy with a Cheshire

[Vince1963]

Hi Daniel that puts my 8" to shame lol. get some great views with that (maybe not many tonight though), hope you get some pictures up here, i'd love to see them. vince

[RikM]

Smashing scope, the views are awesome. I had a play with one of these at the SGL5 starparty. The ring nebula live and in colour with my own eyes :)

An LB16 is definitely on my long term shopping list

[Skybrowser]

Looks good. How is it for moving around? heavy?

[Daniel-K]

its like trying to move a 128lb dead weight lol its a lump but i can manage it. cant wait to test it out. we have one up at the society i had a go and liked it so bought one lol

[RikM]

They are very smooth in movement when observing though. (when set up right).

[Bart]

I have my eye on one of those also. Very nice.

Bart

[Daniel-K]

the mirror is in good condition but im going to get it re-coated just for the fact i can see me having this for a very long time with the time im going to be putting in doing the mods to make it sweet as

[Tiddles]

jealous.....I want one!!

[Daniel-K]

i bought it mainly because i dont really know were alot of stuff is in the sky i jumped straight in and got a goto so never really needed to know but now i want to know so this should be a fun way to learn. got my pocket atlas on order with my red torch. just need a telrad now

[LukeSkywatcher]

Good god......................that is a beast. You made the dew shield for a single camping mat?

[Daniel-K]

Good god......................that is a beast. You made the dew shield for a single camping mat?

yes its was 10mm thick which was needed other wise it would have been to floppy there was a tiny bit left over to do the finder

[knobby]

It could be just my imagination but you look so happy, I think you are going to dance with it

[Damo636]

Fantastic piece of kit, congrats.

[paulhutch]

And I always said I would never give in to app fever........How wrong I was!

[Daniel-K]

not too rub it in but just had an hour of a clear patch! this is another reason for a dob clear patch = astro fix took a bit to align the finder but seeing saturn as it looks in a picture the view through the 8MM BST was huge! then i found M44 wooo first messier found non go-to then the leo triplet and to finish it off a nicely resolved M3 stunning! just drifting though 12MM BST very impressed

[Daniel-K]

And I always said I would never give in to app fever........How wrong I was!

feel free to come see paul your not to far away

[Daniel-K]

It could be just my imagination but you look so happy, I think you are going to dance with it

never mind dance need to make room in the bed

[Adz]

Lovely scope there, feels almost an insult to call it a light bucket I would love to see the detail and colour you guys are describing

[starnut]

WoW.......

[todd8137]

after try in to move one of these around i ended up getting a c gem 9.25,i could just not move the light bridge around,do you have a dark site at home

[Viv]

It's huge !!

Congrats

[Citizen]

Excuse me for being a bit thick, as I am still learning the ins and outs of the different types of telescopes, but won't an open truss dob like that suffer badly from residual light compared to a closed tube scope?

In anything but excellent dark site surroundings, isn't it a problem? Or do you have to cover the truss with a blanket/shroud? Still getting my head around that idea (since I first saw that type of scope). Understand how refractors/reflectors/SCTs all basically work, but that design really confuses me.

I know they are called light buckets, but that bucket looks like it is full of holes! Just looks like the light you've collected can escape or the light you don't want can flood in? There must be some simple physics involved. I say simple...........

[Adz]

Normally if the surround light is a problem you use a shroud to cover it, you can buy expensive ones or make you own for less. The light you have collected by the primary mirror cannot escape though, as once the mirrors are collimated, it all gets shot through to the secondary and up to your eye.

[Citizen]

Yeah, I understood that once collected by the primary it was ok, it just appears that you are missing out on even more possible light. Is it a pay off for having a larger aperture but at a manageable weight?