Shoutout to the guy who let me use his telescope at a dark sky site last weekend

I was out at Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania last Saturday night with just my binoculars and a star chart, feeling pretty dumb. This older gentleman with a homemade Dobsonian saw me struggling to find Andromeda and actually waved me over to look through his scope. He spent like 15 minutes explaining how he built the mount from plywood and a porch swing hinge, which I thought was pretty wild. Anyway, the view of M31 was amazing, and now I'm wondering if I should try building my own telescope instead of dropping $800 on a store-bought one. Has anyone here built a dobsonian before and regretted it?

2 comments

2 Comments

gibson.seth8d ago

@the_faith has a good point about the garage graveyard problem, but did he actually measure how many hours that older guy put into that mount vs how many he would've spent just saving for a store scope? I've seen people drop $1,500 on a used Obsession and still have to collimate it every time they move it a foot. The real question for you is whether you're the type who gets satisfaction from making something work with your hands or just wants the view ASAP. Porch hinge mounts are surprisingly stable if you pick the right one, but they do take a lot of fiddling. What's your actual woodworking skill level like, and do you own a drill or a table saw already?

the_faith8d ago

Hate to be that guy, but how many half-finished projects are collecting dust in your garage right now? Building a telescope sounds awesome until you realize it's basically a woodworking project with some mirrors that have to be perfect. A porch swing hinge mount is clever, but most folks end up spending as much on mistakes and tools as a store-bought one, plus a year of weekends.