"Does Everyone Have an 8" Dob?"

[crowlord]

8" Dob

8" Schmidt Cassegrain

8" Pen......

i'll stop there

Must be a pain to hold that one!

[simon84]

I'm amazed at how many people have a 3" scope. I wonder what you all use them for. Finder scopes for your 8" scopes?

I use mine for guiding and imaging.

Actually thats a complete fib, I use them for looking pretty on the shelf......

[Ant]

I've a 3" F7 APO, 5" F12 Mak and a 6" F5 Newt.

Mak's for planets and moon, both the other two are for DSO imaging.

Ant

[LukeSkywatcher]

Nice size for a grab 'n' go rich field scope. Lighter & more flexible in terms of magnification than your 20x90 bins ... does a similar job. A good 3" / 80mm frac makes a nice solar scope too.

Maybe for some they are lighter. My 3.5" scope sure aint lighter then my bins. Cant argue about the magnification though.

[Michael Rapley]

Just sold my 114mm newt and 120mm refractor, they funded my 200mm dob which should arrive today and some upgraded eyepieces and a good

barlow

[jgs001]

8" Dob free zone here... Although I could only vote for a single 3" scope, but I have 2 of them mounted side by side. I also have a 2.5" (well 60mm) scope although I never use it, and a 4" Mak.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Shouldn't we be metric. This is the 21st Century, after all.

Sorry, one of my pet hobby horses. I have voted, though!

Or we could use the new system of units of "The Register", and express our telescope apertures in linguine (lg=14cm), double-decker buses, and brontosauruses (only for radio telescopes), for details see

So, what's the velocity of a sheep in a vacuum? • The Register

No 8" dob, a 1.41 lg SCT for me

[ollypenrice]

I'm amazed at how many people have a 3" scope. I wonder what you all use them for. Finder scopes for your 8" scopes?

What do I look at in our Pronto? With a 2 inch EP and an O111 filter the whole of the Veil complex is visble without moving. So is the whole Rosette. The Double Cluster framed with Stock II is unforettable. Really it is like the view you get in big binos but easier on the neck with better star quality than in the binos I have.

However, I bet most of them are used for imaging and guiding.

Olly

[jgs001]

I missed that comment...

I have one 3" scope as a guide scope, and 1 3" scope as my imaging scope, doing double duty as both a deep sky imager, sometimes, on the bright globs with a teleconverter to get 1200mm, and as a lunar/planetary imager with barlows and tubes.

I do agree with Olly on the double viewed wide in a 3" scope... lovely...

[ZOG]

!2" Dob 5" and 3" Refractors

[rowan46]

mines 5 inches but i told the wife it was bigger she's not into astronomy

[RikM]

6" for me.

Rik

[msinclairinork]

80mm & 60mm Refractor's

[maximR]

Since I'm 14 years old and have a 70mm as my starter scope, I feel left out and intimidated by all the monster scopes you guys have...

Will upgrade to a higher aperture dob when I grow older and have my own job ?

[Space Cowboy]

Yep. I'm a strange looking guy.

Any relation to Peter Crouch??????

[lukebl]

Any relation to Peter Crouch??????

Funny you should say that ........

[RobH]

Since I'm 14 years old and have a 70mm as my starter scope, I feel left out and intimidated by all the monster scopes you guys have...

Don't be intimidated!!

At 14 I had a 2 1/2 inch scope that I made myself from old lenses and cardboard tube....but it worked

Cheers

Rob

[John]

Since I'm 14 years old and have a 70mm as my starter scope, I feel left out and intimidated by all the monster scopes you guys have...

Will upgrade to a higher aperture dob when I grow older and have my own job ?

My 1st scope was a 60mm refractor - but I had to wait until I was 20 to get that

I saw loads with that scope including my 1st galaxies, my 1st view of Saturn, double stars and clusters.

Your 70mm captures more light than my 60mm did and will provide better views I'll bet. Try some double stars if you have not already - a 70mm should do well on those

[lukebl]

Since I'm 14 years old and have a 70mm as my starter scope, I feel left out and intimidated by all the monster scopes you guys have...

Will upgrade to a higher aperture dob when I grow older and have my own job ?

Don't feel intimidated at all. Stick with it!

I managed to get an O-Level (GCSE) in Astronomy with a 60mm scope, back in the day. Learnt a lot with that scope!

Got grade A, too, but I don't like to talk about it.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Since I'm 14 years old and have a 70mm as my starter scope, I feel left out and intimidated by all the monster scopes you guys have...

Will upgrade to a higher aperture dob when I grow older and have my own job ?

Our school happened to have a 70mm refractor. This started me out in astronomy (actually did an MSc in astronomy in the Kapteyn Institute here in Groningen). Saw many great sights with that scope.

[mdstuart]

Come on who has the biggest one then...

20inches 36?

[Peter Drew]

30" at present and 42.5" in long term progress. (You did ask).

[maximR]

Thank you for your motivation guys. At first I thought that I had wasted my parent's money on the scope (Skywatcher) and felt that it was too small to observe anything other than the moon and Saturn.

I recently purchased Turn Left at Orion, waiting for it to arrive.

[Michael Rapley]

You have made an excellent purchase there, TLAO is a fantastic book, it'll teach you about the sky and has something to see all year round. I have a Skywatcher 70mm and it is a lot of fun, nice and light and quick to set up. Remember that the size of a scope isn't everything, whats more important is how often you use it. Seeing conditions also have a part to play. Join a local astro club, look through their scopes, then in the future if you do want to upgrade you'll have a better idea of what your requirments are, it's easy to spend money in this hobby the trick is to spend it wisely.

[AllanJ]

4" mak and 10" dob