I am a bit like a couple of the other contributors, have no direct information regarding your planned Dobsonian, but telescopes can be fun to play with, but also eat a few $$. I did a Donsonian when a travelling person would run sky night sessions in a caravan park about 8 years ago, but the Dobsonians are not often used with automatic tracking gear.
I made my first Newtonian telescope by grinding, figuring and polishing the 8" glass blanks myself. That was followed by making the tube, equatorial mount, and even a ratchet eyepiece holder. That took more than 10 years with 2 house moves in between, but it is so big and awkward to move in and out of the garage, that I even considered making a permanent observatory for it. It ended its initial use when a work associate dropped and broke the mirror, so I purchased a replacement mirror rather than doing the whole grind job again.
But rather than building its own little observatory, I ended up purchasing a 200mm Schmitt Cassegrain with its own motorised mount and it could be packed away in a nice padded box.
The whole topic can be a bit addictive, but I must admit I have not used either of those for probably 5 years. I still follow several related topics on Youtube.
Let us know if you get something.
Rob P.
Followed Adrians threads but I think he mainly uses an SLR camera not scopes.
