I enjoy astronomy but always vicariously. Should I build a Dobsonian telescope? I live in Nashville and probably won't ever enjoy anything approaching the images I can download.
I think the attraction of Dobsonian is the cost/aperture ratio. Thing is, Ima assume night skies in Nashville aren't the best, so I'd want something easily portable to take out of the city. (Speaking as someone who bought a big, heavy, slow to set up 8" Newtonian years back for that Mars close approach.)
Being the stereotypical Scottish thrifty person that I am it's definitely the cost/aperture ratio that has always appealed to me about the Dobsonian route. For over 20 years I've waffled on it. Each time I'm almost ready to bite the bullet I get to thinking about where I'm going to set it up (because it sure isn't going to be moving around a whole lot afterwards) and whether I'm going to be able to get enough enjoyment out of it to be worth the effort. Maybe I need to just move out to the country and be done with it. Wife says she's ready.
Considering the atmosphere has a lot less debris floating around in it, I’d get to building, Mr. Hubble.
Dobsonians are mostly more about deep space viewing. Any urban/suburban area will be horrible for that. I'd be all over a maksutov. Crystal clear views of the planets and moon craters, but can still get some nice views of close galaxies and star clusters.
I don't know you other than through the beeb AFAIK, but I gave a hunch you fit right in just fine. Embrace the geekiness.
Yeah, probably. I'd love to get more into astronomy than just knowing Orion, the Big Dipper, and watching for Space Station flyovers, but the light pollution here in DFW drowns out anything over 0 magnitude, and that's on a good night.
https://explorescientificusa.com/products/galileoscope Just ordered to teach my kids. Use it to see my wife as well. The closest id ever want to see her is from another planet.
