Astronomy Buff

Dobsonians: A Great Beginners Scope

by Tony on March 28th, 2007

In my previous two posts on what makes a good beginner’s telescope, I emphasized ease of use. No telescope meets that criterion better than the Dobsonian.

It is perfect in its simplicity and offers the best value among the larger aperture telescopes. It was invented by an amateur astronomer named John Dobson. He wanted a telescope that was easy to build and affordable. The design is quite simple, one look says it all. The optical assembly sits on a box that rotates in azimuth and allows the tube to move up and down in altitude.

While the simplest and least inexpensive ones do not have a clock drive, they can be equipped with one, allowing users to track the sky and do imaging. They are at their best though when used as simple point-and-look affairs.

Another great advantage of Dobsonians are the value they offer for a given aperture. It is desirable to get the largest diameter mirror you can afford so that the dim galaxies and nebulae that you’re going to be looking at appear as bright as possible. The cost of this design of telescope is almost all in the optics, particularly the objective. The allows one to get the biggest telescope for the money.

Finally, Dobsonians are portable and quite sturdy. They come apart easily and fit into many trunks; they also take a lot of abuse. I’ve even dropped mine a few times with no real ill effects other than an optical alignment.

The success of this design of telescope stands as a testament to Dobson, he designed a telescope that would be used, not languish in a closet.

There are many of these scopes on the market now, but there are two that I would heartily recommend.

Technorati Tags: dobsonians, Meade Lightbridge, Orion SkyQuest, telescopes

The first one is the Meade Lightbridge. It is a relative newcomer to the market, I think it came out late last summer. The 8-inch sells for $599.00 and is and excellent value. The really cool truss-tube design allows the telescope to be broken down and transported in very small trunks. This is my first choice for a beginner’s telescope. It is rugged, has a large enough diameter mirror that shows dim galaxies and nebulae very well; it is well made and will last a long time.

I recently purchased one of these and am very happy with it. I keep it stored in the back of my car most of the time so I can just drive out to some dark area an set it up quickly. I used it to see Saturn at opposition, Comet McNaught, I went out to see the Whirlpool Galaxy last night, it gets used quite a bit.

The Orion SkyQuest Dobsonians are my next choice. These used to be my first, but since I started using the LightBridge, I’ve decided I like those better. The Orion Dobsinians are a little cheaper, about $400.00 for the 8-inch.

What I really like about these scopes though is that you can purchase an upgrade known as Intelliscope. This is a handy electronic unit that will help you find some of the more difficult and dim deep-sky objects, like the Crab Nebula, a very dim supernova remnant (at least in suburban skies). Basically, you locate a bright star, tell the control box what your looking at, then it’ll help you find other objects by telling you how much to rotate the tube in altitude and azimuth. Little arrows appear and then go away when you’ve reached the right spot.

I was surprised at how handy that little accessory turned out to be. My sons use that exclusively to find stuff in their telescope - a little too much for my liking.

Both of these telescopes would make outstanding first telescopes. I also know many advanced amateurs that own them, they are just so simple to use and take outside that they end up being the go to scopes when we need to get outside quickly and without a lot of hassle.

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