A Dobsonian Telescope is popularly called as Dobs. If you want to watch planets, stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies then Dobsonian is the telescope meant for you. Dobsonian Telescopes are essentially conventional Newtonian reflectors. They are mounted using an unique and simplified altitude/azimuth mounting system. The design of this simplified telescope is credited to John Dobson. He designed the telescope with the idea of creating a “truly” peoples telescope, that could be made using limited resource in the form of salvaged materials and unskilled labour.
These days the inexpensive Dobsonian Telescopes has moved far ahead in terms of the original design formulated earlier by Mr. Dobson. The new designs are bereft of porthole glass mirror, broomstick secondary holders, plumbing component focuser that ware commonly associated with Dobsonian Telescopes.
Moden Dobsonian Telescopes have excellent mounting systems, smooth motions and superb optics.
Moden Dobsonian Telescopes have excellent mounting systems, smooth motions and superb optics.
Types of Dobsonian Telescope
There are primarily two types of Dobsonian telescope. The first one is Dobsonians consisting of solid tubes. These are quite popular in apertures up to ten inches. Pristine. The second type has a truss tube design. This works well for apertures more than twelve inches where solid tube becomes rather unwieldy for handling. This type of Telescope also known as truss tube Dobsonian is assembled in the field before use. Mostly all the amateur telescopes with more than fourteen inches of aperture are truss tube Dobsonians.
Advantages of Dobsonian Telescope
Dobsonian Telescope offers some very good advantages to amateur astronomers. People in the age bracket of 10-80 years can easily manoeuver this type of telescope. A simple design of the mount structure holds the tube similar to a toy canon. This makes the tube swivel easily up and down, left and right. The simply constructed mount is generally made of wood and is very stable in design and easy to set up and use. Some of the latest features offered by Dobsonian telescopes include:
- Highly advanced red-dot finder
- Diffraction limited optics
- Built-in primary mirror cooling fan
