First light with the Explore Scientific Ultralight Dob

[Nicola Fletcher]

Christmas came early this year, and my better half had ordered a 12” Explore Scientific Ultralight dob well ahead of Christmas. When it was delivered last week, he said I should set it up (which I was very happy to do)! Of course I’ve been plagued with cloudy skies and work commitments since I got it, but I did set it up and had a quick check of it earlier in the week. It’s my first reflector so I had a go at collimating it too, which is really easy as it can be collimated from the eyepiece with the supplied collimation tool and the adjustment screws beside the primary mirror.

After setting it up in the house, the scope certainly looks the part and the action is very smooth in both axes. I can’t find any of the issues that were highlighted in some earlier reviews.

On putting it in the garden for the first time, it was obviously out of collimation as the stars were all comet shaped but I had another go with a laser collimator and got it right. 

Last night, despite lots of clouds, @Jasonb and I set up the dob and his Skywatcher 200pds at my family farm in the mountains and got some good views of Jupiter despite not great seeing. The north and south equatorial belts were lovely with great detail, as was the north temperate belt. At about 11.30pm, we had our first view of the season of M42 using an Astronomik UHC filter and 22mm Nagler, and it was just spectacular with beautiful nebulosity and structure. The moon was high and although partially obscured by cloud, was for me the highlight of the evening through the Explore Scientific using a Baader 8-24mm MKIV zoom at 8mm, with exclamations of amazement from all present at the detail and wow factor of the moon through a 12” dob. Ed Ting said that everyone should see the moon through a large aperture telescope and it certainly didn’t disappoint!

(Blurry photo below showing the cloud with tiny gaps, and two very excited amateur astronomers peeping through the sucker holes).

 

Overall, I’m absolutely delighted with this ultralight-ish scope that’s very portable and very easy to use. The optics seem great and the construction is super. The only thing I’ve done so far is replace the red dot finder and shoe with a Baader universal finder shoe and a Celestron star pointer pro RDF. I’ve a shroud ordered from Shrouds by Heather and I hope to put a Nexus DSC pro on it as well. Looking forward to a proper clear sky in the hopefully not too distant future too.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Nicola Fletcher

[globular]

Looks HUGE....

 

Looks the perfect size...

 

Looks wonderful. Hope you enjoy it 

[Nikolai De Silva]

Great scope @Nicola Fletcher. I love it!

[Nicola Fletcher]

11 hours ago, globular said:

Looks HUGE....

 

Looks the perfect size...

 

Looks wonderful. Hope you enjoy it 

Thank you 😊

Yes it looked huge in the first photo alright! It’s actually a great size and not too tall or too heavy. I’m glad it worked out as it’s a big change from 3 and 4 inch refractors but I think it’ll complement them well.

[Sunshine]

Amazing scope! Congratulations!

[dweller25]

Nice scope, great pooch 🙂

[Alan White]

Looks a really super set up, very transportable.

I hope you post a review after some use with what you find from prolonged use, perhaps in 2026 or 27 when the cloud passes might be long enough 😉

[Nicola Fletcher]

1 hour ago, Alan White said:

Looks a really super set up, very transportable.

I hope you post a review after some use with what you find from prolonged use, perhaps in 2026 or 27 when the cloud passes might be long enough 😉

I certainly will. The weather has been really awful hasn’t it. The forecast for Friday looked great and the sky was fantastic when I was driving home at dusk - then it was like a carpet of cloud was rolled out over the sky. Oh well, it’ll make the next clear night even more special when it comes!

[bosun21]

Great purchase Nicola. I now regret recently selling my 12" dobsonian and I'm now considering buying another. What is the weight of your ES please?

[jjohnson3803]

I've shied away from Dobs due to size and weigth, but I might have to reconsider after seeing your new acquisition.

 

[The60mmKid]

20 hours ago, Nicola Fletcher said:

Christmas came early this year, and my better half had ordered a 12” Explore Scientific Ultralight dob well ahead of Christmas. When it was delivered last week, he said I should set it up (which I was very happy to do)! Of course I’ve been plagued with cloudy skies and work commitments since I got it, but I did set it up and had a quick check of it earlier in the week. It’s my first reflector so I had a go at collimating it too, which is really easy as it can be collimated from the eyepiece with the supplied collimation tool and the adjustment screws beside the primary mirror.

After setting it up in the house, the scope certainly looks the part and the action is very smooth in both axes. I can’t find any of the issues that were highlighted in some earlier reviews.

On putting it in the garden for the first time, it was obviously out of collimation as the stars were all comet shaped but I had another go with a laser collimator and got it right. 

Last night, despite lots of clouds, @Jasonb and I set up the dob and his Skywatcher 200pds at my family farm in the mountains and got some good views of Jupiter despite not great seeing. The north and south equatorial belts were lovely with great detail, as was the north temperate belt. At about 11.30pm, we had our first view of the season of M42 using an Astronomik UHC filter and 22mm Nagler, and it was just spectacular with beautiful nebulosity and structure. The moon was high and although partially obscured by cloud, was for me the highlight of the evening through the Explore Scientific using a Baader 8-24mm MKIV zoom at 8mm, with exclamations of amazement from all present at the detail and wow factor of the moon through a 12” dob. Ed Ting said that everyone should see the moon through a large aperture telescope and it certainly didn’t disappoint!

(Blurry photo below showing the cloud with tiny gaps, and two very excited amateur astronomers peeping through the sucker holes).

 

Overall, I’m absolutely delighted with this ultralight-ish scope that’s very portable and very easy to use. The optics seem great and the construction is super. The only thing I’ve done so far is replace the red dot finder and shoe with a Baader universal finder shoe and a Celestron star pointer pro RDF. I’ve a shroud ordered from Shrouds by Heather and I hope to put a Nexus DSC pro on it as well. Looking forward to a proper clear sky in the hopefully not too distant future too.

Congratulations on the new scope, and thank you for the report! It sounds like a real gem 🎉

[Nicola Fletcher]

36 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Great purchase Nicola. I now regret recently selling my 12" dobsonian and I'm now considering buying another. What is the weight of your ES please?

The entire thing assembled is reported to be 32.1kg, but I wonder if that’s including the counterweights (I haven’t weighed it myself). The mirror box is 18.9kg and that’s by far the heaviest component. The rocker box, truss poles and upper truss assembly are very light. I can lift the individual components by myself and assemble it in situ, but with two people it’s very easy to just lift it by the handles on the rocker box when fully assembled.

 

7 minutes ago, jjohnson3803 said:

I've shied away from Dobs due to size and weigth, but I might have to reconsider after seeing your new acquisition.

 

I was the same - I didn’t want to buy a solid tube dob because of the weight and storage issues, but this packs down into two very portable boxes that are easily moved and fit into the boot of a Hyundai i20 with room to spare. I can see myself taking this on holidays and to star parties with no hesitation. It’s surprisingly quick to assemble once you do it a couple of times. I think it’ll need to be collimated every time it’s set up - I labelled the trusses to put them back in the same place each time, but still needed to re-collimate. However, this is dead easy and took me less than 5 minutes in the dark.

[Nicola Fletcher]

12 minutes ago, The60mmKid said:

Congratulations on the new scope, and thank you for the report! It sounds like a real gem 🎉

Your 22mm Nagler was awesome with it! Thank you again 😊

[bosun21]

41 minutes ago, Nicola Fletcher said:

The entire thing assembled is reported to be 32.1kg, but I wonder if that’s including the counterweights (I haven’t weighed it myself). The mirror box is 18.9kg and that’s by far the heaviest component. The rocker box, truss poles and upper truss assembly are very light. I can lift the individual components by myself and assemble it in situ, but with two people it’s very easy to just lift it by the handles on the rocker box when fully assembled.

 

I was the same - I didn’t want to buy a solid tube dob because of the weight and storage issues, but this packs down into two very portable boxes that are easily moved and fit into the boot of a Hyundai i20 with room to spare. I can see myself taking this on holidays and to star parties with no hesitation. It’s surprisingly quick to assemble once you do it a couple of times. I think it’ll need to be collimated every time it’s set up - I labelled the trusses to put them back in the same place each time, but still needed to re-collimate. However, this is dead easy and took me less than 5 minutes in the dark.

Last question Nicola. The secondary mirror holder is a different design to the norm I've noticed. Do you have any problems with adjusting this during collimation? Thanks.

[Nicola Fletcher]

24 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Last question Nicola. The secondary mirror holder is a different design to the norm I've noticed. Do you have any problems with adjusting this during collimation? Thanks.

No problem - delighted to talk about it as my whole family are sick of hearing me talk incessantly about it 😬

I have no experience with other reflectors and I understand that this dob uses a non-standard design. I have found collimating the primary to be dead easy by adjusting  the three knobs behind the primary, but I did use a laser collimator. I don’t know if I would run into issues if I used another method as was recently highlighted in another post on this forum. But I was extremely impressed with the views given the less than ideal conditions so far. I observe using premium refractors so that’s a caveat in terms of my ability to critique the design of the scope - but I am used to excellent optics and I would say that I am very impressed with this dob so far. 

[bosun21]

34 minutes ago, Nicola Fletcher said:

No problem - delighted to talk about it as my whole family are sick of hearing me talk incessantly about it 😬

I have no experience with other reflectors and I understand that this dob uses a non-standard design. I have found collimating the primary to be dead easy by adjusting  the three knobs behind the primary, but I did use a laser collimator. I don’t know if I would run into issues if I used another method as was recently highlighted in another post on this forum. But I was extremely impressed with the views given the less than ideal conditions so far. I observe using premium refractors so that’s a caveat in terms of my ability to critique the design of the scope - but I am used to excellent optics and I would say that I am very impressed with this dob so far. 

Thanks Nicola but it is the secondary mirror holder i am asking about. The ES dobsonians have a completely different design to standard dobs.

[Nicola Fletcher]

43 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

Thanks Nicola but it is the secondary mirror holder i am asking about. The ES dobsonians have a completely different design to standard dobs.

Oh, my apologies, yes I see you did ask about the secondary. I’ve no problem whatsoever with it. Collimating the secondary is so easy with the tool they supply, and I really don’t think there’s much of a risk of hitting the mirror if you’re careful. I had absolutely no issue collimating it in the dark with just a torch when attaching the tool to the collimation screws. I think this is one of the big advantages of this scope design and it definitely works for me!

[Paz]

Very nice, you will have lots of good times with that, and it looks good in front of the book case, you can just leave it there when not in use!

[Nicola Fletcher]

3 hours ago, Paz said:

Very nice, you will have lots of good times with that, and it looks good in front of the book case, you can just leave it there when not in use!

I completely agree. Let’s see how long I get away with that 😂