TheSkySearchers

I was planning to eventually build a Dobson mount for my Meade 10" Schmidt Newtonian. I had already put my design on paper and bought some nice birch plywood for the build but that's as far as I got.

Recently I saw an advertisement in the classifieds on Cloudy Nights for a SkyQuest Dobson mount. It was missing the side bearings and their CorrecTension Friction Optimization System which applies additional friction onto the altitude bearing pads. As I understand it, the system uses a spring coil and helps with insufficient friction and balancing when changing eyepieces, etc.

I decided to buy it and received it a few days later. I bought two 4-inch PVC pipe caps that had a 5 inch outer diameter, drilled holes in the center and connected them to each side of one of the tube rings from my EQ mount. The ring is surrounded on each side by my home-built Wilson Rings so I can rotate the tube if needed for best eyepiece position. The altitude friction is good. The azimuth friction is too stiff but luckily I have some extra Teflon pads I can use for that! If you click on the photo it will show the correct orientation.

very nice, i had to google what a schmidt newt was . it's got me interested , i guess i'll do some reading. how are the views ?

It's a 10 inch f/4 scope but the front corrector does its job so that a coma corrector really isn't needed, although I am sure a coma corrector would help for younger eyes. I really don't notice the difference with a Paracorr 1.

Its a heavy OTA at 30 pounds and the LXD55 EQ mount it came with is only rated at 30 pounds. It worked visually but I noticed that same mount worked a lot better with a 15 pound refractor! So a new $1500+ EQ mount that can handle it's weight is not in the cards at this time. That's why I wanted to start using it with a Dobson mount. I predict I will use it more now.

I really love the wide field views. Its great for deep sky which is what I am mainly interested in. I have yet to take it to a dark sky site and I am looking forward to that!

Here you can see the front corrector plate and it's equatorial mount:

A nice telescope Bruce, you do not see a lot of these anymore.
With a 2.7° FOV it should make a nice DSO telescope.