Assembly of my homemade collapsible 10" f/4.7 dobsonian telescope

[@jerrybassett7695]

My best friend, Tom Noe, invented and produced Teleport Telescopes. While his were much easier and quicker to set up, this would have really been impressed him with the compactness and design innovations of your scopes; truly a work of art.

[@GamerAntigo]

Beautiful project. I followed your process through the forum, wonderful solutions like 3D projects or secondary support, for example. Your project and Roel's are my inspirations. Greetings from Brazil

[@Sergey_Sergeev]

Thank you!

[@dumitruhociung856]

Lovely scope mate, and very ingenious solutions to a lot of challenges!

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you Dumitru!

[@tonypirera8386]

Omg what you done was totally amazing

[@walterrumohr7090]

Very impressive design.

[@SterremanWillie]

Very nicely done! Amazing to fit a whole dobbie in a suitcase!

[@jonathanbtodd]

Thay is a work of art. Beautifully done.

[@DobDude]

Very clever design! For 10" it's very compact.

[@Reshad77]

Well done Mark! Neat scope 👏

[@ericbucklin3382]

I love your design that is pretty slick. Thank You for sharing

[@arthurnjr9390]

Great telescope project! Greetings from NGC-51 Amateur Astronomy group Rio de Janeiro-Brasil

[@markleeman3565]

@@arthurnjr9390 thanks, and greetings back!

[@arthurnjr9390]

You'll be welcome to visit us

[@markleeman3565]

@@arthurnjr9390 Thanks for the invite, but unfortunately I live a bit far away for a coffee visit ;) (I am in Europe)

[@streetshooters]

Brilliant!

[@Asifkhan31416]

Superb work!

[@wd5jlr]

Beautiful.

[@misaelescobarruiz1193]

Muy buen teléscopio amigo la astronomia es fascinante

[@glennsmith3199]

This is a wonderful design...do you have patterns to share are sell ?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you. Unfortunately I do not have any drawings.

[@tootnguyen2001]

Thank you for sharing this amazing achievement. Do you have plans to create more for sale or provide construction plans and parts list?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you! I am not planning to build more. At this point I do not have really useful plans to share, I think. I have to think about how to make and share some in a useful way. It would certainly involve some time and effort to do so...

[@JM-yd7rq]

would be good to see your mirror cell and inside the mirror box

[@markleeman3565]

There's a forum thread showing the telescope build, see fi this post: www.astroforum.nl/threads/bouw-van-een-25cm-kofferdobson.1470108/post-1528088. It's in Dutch, but the pictures tell al lot already I think.

[@brianhayward8240]

Excellent build, I'm also building a home made scope modeling after the designs from Roel. Goal is to have something I can put under an airline seat (minus the poles). You made some interesting tweaks to his original design. Are those round things stuck on the underside of the mirror cell counterweights?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you! Yes, those are weight, ~300grams each. Those are to have better balance, the scope still needs the elastic cord to prevent it to sag with an eyepiece put in, but it tends to be more stable with those weights applied.

[@brianhayward8240]

Getting close to having mine completed now too. Same thing with mine, just an elastic band isn't enough to make it stable - must have some counterweight on the bottom. Do you have any info on the dew control system you built as well? Batteries / resistors? @@markleeman3565

[@XMarkxyz]

Wait, you live in the southern hemisphere don't you? Also nice telescope, would love to know enought to build a quality one myself

[@markleeman3565]

No, I am in Europe (The Netherlands). But thank you!

[@GenghisKhanSchmitz]

This is a great design. I have an old Coulter Odyssey 13.1” that I’d like to rebuild to make it portable. Do you have measured drawings and a parts list available for this design?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you for the kind comment. Unfortunately I do not have drawings for my telescope.

[@ranjitneelakandan9551]

Amazing! Did you grind/polish the mirror yourself ?

[@markleeman3565]

No, I took the mirror from a scraped Skywatcher 250mm newton.

[@andreguttesen8982]

such a joy to watch. have you used for astro photography.?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you! No, I use it solely for visual observation. Since it doesn't track it is also not very useful for AF.

[@DuyênLê-e6v7h]

nếu thay thanh thép kia bằng thanh lắp ghép thì nó sẽ nhỏ gọn và để kế bên vali đc luôn

[@markleeman3565]

Not sure what you mean. Part of your text translates to "steel bar", but I don't have any steel bars in this telescope? Do you mean the aluminum truss tubes? I could split those such that I can screw them together, making them more compact. This would make them "airline compatible", but up to now I did not need them to be and so I did not split them (yet).

[@joelmendoza9401]

Nice build! What did you use for the altitude bearing?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you! I cut the "bananas" out of 18mm berch plywood, finished with couple of layers of varnish. The bearing surfaces them selves are teflon pieces on the rocker box side and stardust formica on one of the two "bananas", the other one is just covered with varnish. It seems a bit odd to have formica on just one; the reason is that at first I had plasic matt window film on them, but this turned out to be too smooth. Just varnish was somewhat better but still at the smooth side, adding formica on one of the two seemed exactly fine (so I left it like that).

[@JoanLopez-h6s]

Mark, why do you only use two screws to collimate the primary?

[@markleeman3565]

The two collimation knobs are at a 120degree separation, the third point is a screw that is just set once en left unchanged in the field. The two knobs can be reached with my hand while looking through the cheshire in the focuser, the third screw is too far away (or my arms to short ;) ) and not necassary to adjust.

[@NielssBohr]

Very nice telescope. How did you make up the plans for it?

[@markleeman3565]

Thank you! I designed the entire telescope using 3d CAD (Fusion360)

[@NielssBohr]

@@markleeman3565 Can you make these plans available publicly? or maybe a link to them?

[@NielssBohr]

I have a f/4.5 10" mirror that's waiting for a scope like this one. I want to make as well a travel scope and plans are pretty scarce.

[@brianhayward8240]

Out of curiosity, was the outer radius of your bearings?

[@markleeman3565]

The attitude bearings have a radius of 213mm.