GSO Dobsonian 200 Any Thoughts ?

[Aaron]

Right I'm at the stage where I'm about to take the plunge and buy my first scope, I was initially looking at the Skywater Skyliner 200P 8" DOB, but through the the wonders of the interenet I found the Telescope Service in Germany and they supply GSO DOBS http://www.telescope-service.com/GSO/dobsonians/GSO-Dobsonians.html#200e the one of interest to me is the GSO 200, now they have one on their ebay site at a better price than their website at £221, spec includes cooling fan, 2" crayford focuser etc, the spec looks good and the price even better, I have some dosh in my paypal account ready to burn, are they any good ?.

[Grant]

i believe my revalation 10" dobsonian is from the GSO factory so identical to the one your looking at - its a superb bit of kit, gives lovely views. I found the dobsonian mount design a bit frustrating so I've taken the tube and got some rings for it to put on my eq6, works a treat but a bit of a weight to lug around!

The only concern I would have is ordering from abroad - I recently got stung with customs charges which made a cheap telescope not so cheap - if you do get stung by customs the price of your dob will get pushed up - making the Skywatcher 8" at £240 (http://firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=dobsky200) the better option...

[GazOC]

I bought one of those from Teleskop Service about 6 years ago. Its a great scope.

[Naz]

You are buying from within the EU, you pay tax at the selling countries tax, no tax to pay when it arrives in the UK.

The GSO range was sold as Revelation in the UK I believe, I have the 200 revelation dob tube, and am very pleased with it.

naz

[FLO]

I also used to have a GSO (Revelation) Dobsonian and was pleased with it, the mirror-set was on par with the equivalent Skywatcher. I did feel the collimation springs were a bit weak and I wasn't a fan of the roller-bearings on the Azimuth (mine was a 10"). Both issues were minor and are easily fixed.

Regarding the Skywatcher models, the 8", 10" and 12" Skyliner Dobsonian and 8" and 10" Explorer Newtonian are now equipped with crayford focusers. They are also backed by an official UK importer...

[Aaron]

Thanks for bringing that to my attention Steve, thats just swayed the Skyliner in my favour, plus it looks better in white , now all I've just got to do is convince swmbo .