Explore Scientific 16" Dob - Any Comments?

[Paul73]

Morning All

On my morning squint at the classifieds I noticed that Russ is parting with his 12" version of this scope. Then I remembered some excitement about the new 16" versions last spring, but couldn't remember seeing anything much since. The price is now €1,999 which seems like a suspiciously good deal.

So I was wondering how these had been performing in the field and if the initial quality issues had been addressed?

Paul

[Paul73]

Wow. A sub £2k 16". And nobody has a view on it?????

Paul

PS. Please forgive the shameless bumping of this thread.

[mister_wavey]

bump away, I'm interested in learning more, too.

[John]

These get close to £1K when Telescope House have one of their discount weekends:

http://www.telescopehouse.com/acatalog/Revelation-16---f-4.5-M-CRF-Truss-Dobsonian--Black-.html#aBC192

One of our members, Binocularsky, has bought the 16" Explore Scientific dob. I've not seen a lot of reports from him on the scope though.

[niallk]

Interested too! I see several keen queries on CN also looking for updates re US release... It was mentioned by a rep before that quality enhancements would be made before US market release.

[russ.will]

To be fair, the main quality issue that could be addressed - and this applies to the 15" too - would be steel inserts where-ever a steel screw passes through aluminium. This means the truss pole mounts on the secondary cage and the secondary mirror collimation screws, where they pass through the spider. I keep those screws lightly greased with a thick machine grease and have had no problems.

I would also say the paint could be a little thicker, but the thing with a little extra this and a touch of extra that, is that you soon start adding £100s to the price.

The only honest gaff on the scope is the angle at which the focuser is set - that being horizontal. I found that pretty much anything below 45deg resulted in me taking to ex-motorcyclists creaky knees, or snapping my neck as an alternative. The latter is inconvenient, and the former could cause me to spill my grape based sustenance and thus, is equally unpopular. I remounted the cage to point the focuser 30deg up and now all is well.

Just to fill out the reasons for sale - The one thing I haven't tried (that I want to) in terms of scopes is an SCT. I've tried Newts of 8 to 12" and 1/4 to 1/10th wave mirrors and come to the conclusion, aperture rules. As I therefore don't want to try an SCT of less than 10", the change will be expensive and means at least two telescopes must give way. the two chosen were those closest to the use the SCT would get. If I could sneak another scope past the wife (like I do EPs!) then I wouldn't be selling any, as the ES Dob is certainly the best blend of views and portability I've had.

Russell

[Paul73]

Thanks Russell

All became clear when I saw your comments on the "My New Toy" BIG SCT thread (unfortunatally not yours or mine).

I agree re the eyepiece possition. Given that this is such an obvious point. I did wonder if they had addressed the QC issues from when this range first came out.

Considering the excellent ££ : Inch ratio, I would have thought that we would have have a stream of first light reports.

Paul

[John]

Once thing I can't understand is why the ES dobsonians were available in Europe way before the USA  . They may well still not have hit US shores yet in fact.

With their eyepieces the US have usually had them a couple of months before the EU.

[Paul73]

Once thing I can't understand is why the ES dobsonians were available in Europe way before the USA  . They may well still not have hit US shores yet in fact.

With their eyepieces the US have usually had them a couple of months before the EU.

Could be that Europe is a smaller "test bed" market to iron out any glitches from an unfamiliar product line. Their eyepieces are known, tried and tested. So they risk nothing by shoving them straight through to the biggest market.

Just an idle thought.

Paul