beacon hill telescopes

[seven_legs]

Thinking of getting a Dob. I know of Orion Optics Uk but still waiting for a reply to my email I sent a couple of days ago.

so has anyone had any dealings with beacon hill telescopes lately?

i remember years ago my friend had a 10” dob from them and that was a great scope.

[johninderby]

Have you considered David Luckhurst? Makes great custom dobs. 

https://www.dobsonians.co.uk/12f6.html

Think Beacon Hill  still makes dobs to order but not heard much about them lately. 

[martin_h]

52 minutes ago, seven_legs said:

Thinking of getting a Dob. I know of Orion Optics Uk but still waiting for a reply to my email I sent a couple of days ago.

so has anyone had any dealings with beacon hill telescopes lately?

i remember years ago my friend had a 10” dob from them and that was a great scope.

I have passed a message on to Barry at beacon hill for you. He is pretty much retired now but I do know he still does the mounts.

[seven_legs]

Yeah I know of David luckhurst scope. Very nice scopes but out of my price range at the moment. 

will probably go to Orion Optics uk, I thinks. As I’m after a 10 or 12” dob with 1/10 wave mirror.

thanks

[seven_legs]

2 minutes ago, martin_h said:

I have passed a message on to Barry at beacon hill for you. He is pretty much retired now but I do know he still does the mounts.

Thanks Martin. 

It all depends on me selling my 16” explore scientific dob. Which I will put up for sale in the next day or two.

[johninderby]

One thing you may not know about Orion Optics is you can have your dob in any colour you want. They do have a charge for having to change over to another colour but not too much.

I had one done in blue. 

[seven_legs]

Didn’t know that, thanks. I like blue as well.

what Orion Optics scope have you got John?

[johninderby]

No longer have it but it was called The Blue Whale an OD350 with a Stellarcat drive system.

Apparently changing colours with powder coating entails complete cleaning of the system which is a bit of a job.

Edited October 14, 2020 by johninderby

[seven_legs]

Nice scope. How come you got rid of it? 

[johninderby]

Didn’t get used enough. Should have gone for the 12”.

[seven_legs]

Yeah bit like that with my 16" dob as i can only use it when I go to a dark site. 

My garden bit small for that. 

10 or 12" dob more ideal really 

[johninderby]

My 10” Bresser dob gets more use.

[babystarman]

Barry is still doing stuff at Beacon Hill (just spoken to him on the phone). He's excellent at making stuff to order. I have had his 14" dob since 1991 and it's given years of good service, but I now have an Orion Optics 20" which doesn't however allow quite enough latitude in focussing as I would like. Barry Watts is basically making an extension drawtube for me (in fact he guessed everything I wanted before I told him). I can certainly confirm that OO's optics are truly excellent and John's engineering is a thing of beauty in its design and especially accuracy. Collimation of my new scope involved tweaking ONLY the 3 main mirror screws and took about 5  minutes, possibly less!