Anatomy of a Dobsonian

The annotated photo below will serve as an illustrated glossary; it identifies all the key parts of a Dobsonian telescope, similar but not identical to the one we are building.

This scope was built by Jay Drew, STM, following the design given in [Kriege97] for small Dobs. It's a good looking scope, with the paint job on the tube and the mount made of A-grade fir plywood. The lower part of the mount (rocker box and ground board) has not yet been sealed with a clear coat. The mirror is a 6-inch f/7; it is in a fairly large diameter tube for that size mirror. Jay made the mirror in the Stellafane Mirror Class, and it won Third Place Optical for Newtonians under 12-inches at the 2005 Stellafane Convention.

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