Wallace the 6 inch f/2.8 telescope, building it, and hiking with it

Post by zonkerdonker » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

chantepierre wrote: post #6

zonkerdonker wrote: post #4

Very cool project and video documentation, really inspiring! As someone who is mechanically inclined and has a decent amount of tools/3D printer, is there any DIY telescope that you would recommend to build as a first foray into the field? I've never done much with optics, and after reading through a few of your posts, it looks both incredibly challenging and very rewarding.

To me, there are two models that stand out from the crowd : - The Hadley, a 4"1/2 f/9 dobsonian telescope, which is a smaller aperture but easy to build and to find optics for, and very mature : https://www.printables.com/model/224383-astronomical-telesco... - The "open smallest telescope" from a friend, which I show here, a foldable 6inch f5 dobsonian : https://lucassifoni.info/blog/2025-best-6-inch-f5-150-750-po...…

Post by lgcmo » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC

thenthenthen wrote: post #32

chantepierre wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly not as I exclusively practice visual astronomy. Here is a nebula, NGC7000, drawn by an excellent observer, which appears that way (very wide field, but a bit dimmer than their drawing) : http://www.astrosurf.com/magnitude78/serge/images/NGC7000_10... My advantage despite the low diameter is the ability to frame such huge objects !

What is ‘visual astronomy’? (Sorry, absolute noob here). Wait did you mean.. ‘non-visual astronomy’? I am really confused now