This very affordable Sky-Watcher traditional 8" solid tube Dobsonian reflector offers big performance at a little price. It's easy to transport, easy to assemble, easy to own, and easy to use.
This 8" Sky-Watcher Dobsonian reflector has:
- 8" aperture 1200mm focal length f/5.9 Newtonian optics
- single-speed 2" Crayford focuser with 1.25" adapter
- 9 x 50mm finderscope
- 1.25" 10mm and 25mm Plössl eyepieces
- Teflon altitude and azimuth bearings
- altitude tension clutch
- eyepiece tray
Like all Dobsonian reflectors, this 8" Sky-Watcher traditional solid tube Dob gives you more light-gathering for your visual observing dollar than any other telescope type. It shows you faint deep space objects that are simply invisible in smaller scopes. Its visual limiting magnitude of 14 makes this 8" Sky-Watcher a natural for observing faint nebulas, galaxies, and star clusters, particularly from a dark sky site.
With parabolic mirror Newtonian optics and very thin (only 0.5mm) secondary mirror spider vanes to reduce diffraction, the Moon and planets are sharp and well-defined. They show high contrast and none of the violet halo of spurious color you find in similarly-priced smaller aperture achromatic refractors.
You get the best of both observing worlds with this 8" Sky-Watcher Dob: great light gathering for picking out the faint fuzzies outside our solar system, and great resolution for seeing all the detail on the Moon, planets, and comets inside the solar neighborhood.
The 8" Sky-Watcher Dobsonian is easy to get to your favorite observing site, too, whether that be your own back yard or a dark sky site miles out of town. The Sky-Watcher breaks down into two components - a 48" long 24 pound optical tube and a 25 pound wooden rocker box altazimuth base. It weighs only 49 pounds fully assembled. And assembling the 8" Sky-Watcher Dob takes just a moment, with no tools needed. Simply lift the optical tube, rest its circular altitude bearings in the semi-circular cutouts in the sides of the rocker box, put in an eyepiece, and you're ready to observe.
The optical tube rides on Teflon altitude and azimuth bearings. It moves smoothly in altitude and azimuth to manually find and track objects at the touch of a finger. The 8" Sky-Watcher Dob is equipped with an altitude tension control handle. This lets you adjust the tension in altitude with a simple twist of the wrist to let you compensate for differing eyepiece weights to keep the optical tube from sinking when changing from a lighter to a heavier eyepiece.
Other features include an eyepiece tray, two 1.25" Plössl eyepieces (48x and 120x), a 9 x 50mm straight-through finderscope, and a 2" Crayford focuser with a 1.25" eyepiece adapter. Your 8" Sky-Watcher Dob comes with everything you need to start observing immediately.
Simply made, but with precision optics, this Sky-Watcher 8" traditional solid tube Dobsonian reflector "light bucket" will reward you with bright and sharp deep space and solar system views and years of trouble-free observing enjoyment.
