New 12" dob first all-nighter!

[SAB]

The end of a night of superb viewing with my new 12" dob. No, it wasn't left out in the rain!

[Leegsi]

Looks like a great bit of kit

[zhgutas]

I'm sure I've seen this guy somewhere.Did it star in the "Transformers" ? Excellent looking "bit" of kit!

Marius

[yesyes]

From here it looks like the spider vanes are curvy/wavy shaped. Do these produce wavy diffraction spikes?

[SAB]

Not sure about diffraction spikes, I never actually took notice of it. I don't think there are diff spikes, but will check in 100 billion years when al the stupid idiot rain and cloud clear.

The scope itself has been great. I can say, that with the sdm structure, objects appear more vivid and sharper than with the old version. The trifid is fantastic in this scope, the dark lanes are sharp and clear, while with the old one I was always using averted vision to get faint poorly defined gaps in the nebulosity. Note that these are the exact same optics as in the old scope. And it goes deeper. Stars are virtually as crisp at 300x as they are at 50x. Oh yes, she's also fully capable of 1000x in perfect seeing ! As I found out last weekend.. the Saturn Nebula was most pleasant at 953x, with the central star easily visible as a pinpoint while at any lower mag it was harder

some more pics

[SAB]

more pics

[russ]

wow what an amazing bit of kit......very envious indeed!!!!!!

[yesyes]

It does look amazing indeed... But I still can't grasp how this is all one piece. On your first pics it looks like a "normal" dob. But where does the square box fits in that seems to contain the primary? Do you have a pic where you can see the whole scope?

[John]

Not sure about diffraction spikes, I never actually took notice of it. I don't think there are diff spikes...

My understanding is that curved spider vanes tend to dissapate diffraction so that it is spread more evenly. The spikes dissapear and, because it is spread more evenly, the diffraction appears much less obvious to the observer.

Fantastic looking piece of kit by the way - loads of innovative features by the look of it

[yeti monster]

Cripes! Dob doesn't really describe that does it? How long does it take to set up?

[SAB]

Cheers everyone! I salvaged the mirror set from an old structure, which was really showing its age and had many mechanical problems, particulalry with things like collimation and stability. You could hear it creak everytime you moved it. I got the original version for a very low price, with hand figured optics of Zambuto-like quality by a local ATM (who has made numerous APO lenses). The mirror is old, has a few scratches and marks but still performs fantastically. THe mirrors + strucuture cost only $600, plus the seller included a TV 32mm plossl which I already had (so sold that for $120), and a couple of filters for ~$60 thus in effect I got what was essentially a complete 12" dob with first class optics for $420. I've still got a few bits n pieces left over which could be sold. After a while, I got sick of the never ending pain of collimation, cooldown issues etc so I decided to have it rebuilt. Because I was able to get the old version for a bargain basement price, the complete rebuild (factoring in the end cost of the original scope) cost a smidge over $3k. Now, if I were to do it with a brand new Zambuto or OMI primary and a quality secondary, I'd have paid an even 5k.

It does look amazing indeed... But I still can't grasp how this is all one piece. On your first pics it looks like a "normal" dob. But where does the square box fits in that seems to contain the primary? Do you have a pic where you can see the whole scope?

Thanks! It's a normal truss dob, on the first pics it has the shroud attached. The "square box" is the mirrorbox/rocker, the trusses connect it and the UTA.

Here a full pic, apologies for the Rubbish quality, really need to get a new camera!

[Llamanaut]

you can buy wavy spider vanes separately i think orion optics do them

[yesyes]

Ahhhh, now I get it .. thanks for the pic. It looks the business... ;-)

[SAB]

Cripes! Dob doesn't really describe that does it? How long does it take to set up?

to put it all together, inc finder, dewheaters and collimation etc takes 10 mintues at most. The longest part of the process is taking all the required stuff outside