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Rating: 
Summary: A book that opens my eyes.
Review: Although I am not consider to make my own telescope at the moment. The book opens my eyes. It lets me know who peoples pay their enthusiastic for the astronomy. This is a valuable book for me. It provides every detail to make a scope with such size.
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Summary: Authoritative, technical, easy, practical, humorous, GREAT!
Review: Any astronomer with even the remotest interest in Dobsonian telescopes MUST buy this book.It doesn't matter if you want to build one, use one, or buy one pre-built. David Kriege and Richard Berry do an absolutely tremendous job of taking the reader through all the construction steps of a large-aperature Dobsonian telescope, of describing how to use it, how it will impact your life and your family and what's the best size for you. "The Dobsonian Telescope" is extraordinarily well-illustrated, contains a wealth of technical data that generations of astronomers found the "hard way," yet is very easy to understand and apply. Kriege and Barry also realize that not everyone can afford or has the space for the monster scope of their dreams, so there's even a good chapter on building a much more modest scope from off-the-shelf items. Best of all, all the "big scope" information is still useful for the smaller one (8") and just a plain, good, read. Finally, the book is fun. Both authors have a dry wit that livens up what otherwise could have been a rather boring, technical monologue. For anyone who's ever craved an owner's manual that tells them what they really want to know about their purchase, "The Dobsonian Telescope" is a "best buy." Even better, you don't have to buy the telescope to enjoy the book.
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Summary: The Best!
Review: I used this book The book was incredibly helpful. Though, because of the constraints of a travelscope, many concepts had to be modified. The index listing sources of strange materials was very useful and I even had a few emails to Dave Kriege who responded right away with great advice.
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Summary: This is it
Review: If you are interested, or think you might be interested in building a Dobsonian, this is the book for you. The author has his own business building these large, wonderful telescopes. In this book, he gives away all his secrets. I've even found websites of other amateurs who have read this book and build their own scope. They call this The Book.
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Summary: A comprehensive guide to building your own large dobsonian
Review: Not only did I read the book but I used just about every bit of information to build my own 18" truss type dobsonian telescope. This book was the only guide I used. I found that all the information that is needed was contained within the text, tables and photographs to successfully construct my scope. I challenged myself to find other ways to engineer the truss assembly and found that the design that is laid out in the text could not be improved upon much. The trade-offs included ease of construction, cost, and availability of materials. To put it plainly, some serious engineering went into the methods shown in the book. A must buy!
Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive guide to building your own large dobsonian
Review: Not only did I read the book but I used just about every bit of information to build my own 18" truss type dobsonian telescope. This book was the only guide I used. I found that all the information that is needed was contained within the text, tables and photographs to successfully construct my scope. I challenged myself to find other ways to engineer the truss assembly and found that the design that is laid out in the text could not be improved upon much. The trade-offs included ease of construction, cost, and availability of materials. To put it plainly, some serious engineering went into the methods shown in the book. A must buy!
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Summary: Available from Publisher
Review: This book is available directly
from the publisher for $29.95 at
http://www.willbell.com/tm/dobtel.htm
Rating:
Summary: Great book, but..
Review: This book is simply the best scope making book I've read. Everything is easy to follow. I plan to update my scope one day using the well researched guidelines. I have a couple of criticisms. The first is the dark sky site chapter. I find it amazing that the authors complained about the light from cities and didn't even mention the International Dark Sky Association which is making great inroads into the light pollution problem. Also the authors say that one has only to travel 100 miles to get to dark skies. While the skies will certainly be darker than cities, they are not what one would call really dark. Assume 100 miles from a city of 3.3 million pop. This gives (using Walkers law, details on the IDA website, Info sheet 11) a MINIMUM of 10% increase in the natural background skyglow, a figure at which significant night sky degradation is occurring. One would have to travel further away than 100 miles. The second criticism is that I can't understand why the design didn't include an option to place the secondary cage inside the mirror box for transporting. Tom Clark has done this to great advantage. The third criticism is that on this side of the pond (Australia) 12" is still considered a big scope. A lot of us get our mirrors from the Schott glassworks in Germany where they are 12" dia and not 12.5". It would be nice if the design tables took this into account and a detailed design for a 12" provided. The authors are critical of those who want to grind mirrors, but often the price for a bought one here is, well, astronomical! To be fair, there is a section dealing with grinding & polishing one's own mirror. These are minor things, though. Overall, the book is wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: outstanding book for building *or owning* a telescope
Review: This well-written, extremely thorough book takes the reader through the steps needed to build your own large Dobsonian telescope. More than a simple cookbook-type how-to book, the book takes you into the reason and motivation behind design details so you can make your own trade-offs for your own needs. The book also takes you through the steps of building an 8 inch Dobsonian for your "small" telescope with the same detail and precision. I am not a hard-core ATM, but read the book to understand the design and construction of Dobsonians in general, and to get an idea of how to make my own small, 8 inch Dob work better. The book can be read at least 2 different ways: First, how to construct a large Dobsonian telescope. Second, what to look for when *buying* a large Dobsonian telescope. While the book makes the design, building, and construction of a large Dob seem both exciting and interesting, the entire time I read the book, I teetered between getting enthusiastic about building my own telescope, and the sinking feeling of truly understanding the enormous number of considerations, trade-offs, and important apparently minor details that make the difference between a good telescope and a great one. With all that goes into making a good telescope, you might be better off just buying a good quality telescope. I recommend this book to owners of *all* size Dobsonians as an aid to truly understanding the Dobsonian design for both using, and modifying your own telescope. And to be clear, you *will* modify your telescope, even if it's just adding a finder and having to rebalance the scope. Contains and excellent section on collimation.
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