Successful conversion of Meade 4501 to Dobsonian.

I finally did it. Now instead of an almost unusable telescope with a heavy,
badly worn German equatorial mount, I have a nifty little "grab 'n' go'
scope that barely weighs 15 pounds total.

I built the box as a framework of 1 x 2's. A flat wooden disk is the
azimuth plate. 3 small teflon pads attached to the bottom of the box with
Shoe Goo are the bearings. A long bolt, some bushings made of lamp parts
and a short piece of PVC comprise the azimuth shaft.

I was able to use the tube mount rings from the original mounting, so no
box had to be constucted to hold the tube. Two aluminum disks from an old
reel to reel tape recorder serve as the altitude axis (they were the disks
that held the reels.) I merely bolted them to the tube mount rings,
flipping one of them around in the process.

Now I have a very light, grab n go scope that will be a joy to use rather
than the cumbersome, bulky, hard to get along with piece of junk I had
before. I could find all kinds of reasons not to take it out. The time it
tipped over and hit me on the head was reason enough.

I don't have a digital camera so no pics - maybe some day. I only wish I
hadn't waited so long.

I don't have a digital camera so no pics - maybe some day. I only wish I
hadn't waited so long.

Nice story. You probably could have spend some time beefing up that EQ mount
and made it somewhat better, but DOB mounts can be pretty fine.

As they say, "Better late than never.."

Jon

Sounds great. I tried and should try again, making a dob-like holder
for an ST80 that would go on a tripod.

Larry Stedman
Vestal

Sounds great. I tried and should try again, making a dob-like holder
for an ST80 that would go on a tripod.

Actually you can use a 3 axis head and tilt top axis 90 degrees and end up with
a nice DOB style mount. Alternatively you can take an EQ-1 mount and set the
polar axis to 90 degrees and have a nice balanced "Dob style" mount with slow
motion controls.

Not exactly DOB mounts but they are balanced alt-az mounts which is the basis
of the DOB mount.

jon