The GSO Dobsonian model serves a very clear purpose, to offer a large aperture and an excellent image quality at reasonable cost.
Setting up the telescope is extremely easy. The 8" Professional Dobsonian comes with an advance rocker base which is placed on the ground. The Telescope tube is directly mounted on the rocker base. Put the springs in position and you're ready to go to navigate through the night sky by simply moving the tube up or down, or side to side, by hand.
All GSO Dobsonians use optical quality of high quality BK7 Glass, cooling fans built into the rear cell to decrease cooling times. The Professional Dobs use a roller bearing on the azimuth surface providing dozens of support points for smooth swivel motion.
The deluxe / professional model comes with 2" Micro 10:1 Crayford style focuser along with a 1.25" adapter for smaller 1.25" Eyepieces.
It also comes with a 2" PREMIUM Super View 30mm Eyepiece which will change the way you do Astronomy by giving Ultra Wide Angle views of the NIGHT SKY.
What's In The Box
GSO Dobsonian Telescope with an ADVANCE ROCKER BASE
Cooling Fan behind the main mirror
8x50 Finder with Achromatic Optics
2" Crayford focuser - 1:10 micro - reduction from 2" to 1.25"
30 mm 2" Wide Angle ERFLE with 70° field for good overfiew
9 mm Premium Plössl - multicoated
35mm 2" extension
Eyepiece and Accessory Tray for Eyepieces
FREE Collimation Tool
Why chose a GSO Dobsonian Telescope over other brands ?
GSO makes the World's Finest Astronomical Mirrors with surface accuracy of 1/12 wave.
GSO Professional Dobs come with a 2" Wide Angle Super Plossl eyepiece for Wide Angle / Deep Space Observation [Unavailable in other brands].
Comes with a large 8x50 Multi-Coated Achromatic Finderscope
GSO's CNC Machined Crayford focuser comes with a 2" 'DUAL SPEED' 1:10 Micro Focusing Capability [Unavailable in other brands].
GSO Professional Dobs come with Tube Balancing System that allows you to perfectly balance the tube when you add an additional DSLR Camera to the telescope
[Unavailable in other brands].
The new Altitude Metal Ball Bearings and Clutch System provides smooth vertical motion of the optical tube [Unavailable in other brands].
A Cooling Fan that quickly equalises the temperature of the mirror with surrounding air. This negates the wobbly effect / air turbulance caused due to variations in temperature.
Azimuth Roller Bearings provided at the bottom of the Dobsonian base allows super fine horizontal tracking of celestial objects. The absense of Roller Ball Bearings in other branded Dobsonian Telescopes makes it very difficult to move the telescope on the wooden base.
[Unavailable in other brands]
GSO Dobsonian Telescopes are fully manufactured using CNC Machines and they are MADE IN TAIWAN, not CHINA like other brands.
Please Download INSTRUCTION MANUAL in PDF from the link provided below.
Physical Copies of the manual will not be given.
8x50 Finderscope
Powerful 8x50 finderscope, multicoated objective lens. This little telescope will show many objects in direct vision for easy location.
Finderscope Bracket
The 8 x 50mm finderscope mounts in a quick release bracket that slips into a pre-installed metal mounting shoe nearer the focuser. The bracket is held in place in the mounting shoe by a single large hand-tighten knob that maintains the finder’s collimation, even if the finder is removed between observing sessions. The bracket has two hand-adjust collimation screws that work in conjunction with a third spring-loaded post in the bracket. This makes collimation faster than the traditional three- or six-screw collimation methods used with conventional finder brackets.
Optical Quality
The heart of any telescope is its optics. GSO produces parabolic primary mirrors of very high quality. It is our firm opinion that GSO offers better mirrors in this price range. We guarantee a diffraction-limited performance, which essentially means that the performance is limited by observing conditions and the laws of physics.
Primary Mirror
8” (203mm) diameter, 1200mm focal length, f/5.9 focal ratio with surface accuracy of 1/12 wave. The mirror is made of B270 “water white” optical crown glass that is free of internal stress and striae. B270 glass is equivalent to BK7 in performance and optical quality. The thermal stability of B270 glass is generally better than the soda lime float glass used for the mirrors of most reflectors in this reasonable price range. The mirror is ground and polished under computer control for guaranteed diffraction limited performance, coated with 91% reflectivity aluminum, and overcoated with a protective layer of silicon dioxide (quartz) for long life.
Diagonal Mirror
63mm m.a. B270 “water white” optical crown glass, coated with 91% reflectivity aluminum and overcoated with a protective layer of silicon dioxide (quartz) for long life.
Primary Mirror Cell
Fully adjustable 3-point flotation system metal cell holds the primary mirror. The open frame of the cell allows the mirror to cool down to ambient temperatures quickly, so you can start observing sooner. Large hand-tighten color-coded push-pull collimation and collimation lock knobs make it easy to collimate the primary mirror with no tools required.
Diagonal Mirror
47mm m.a. B270 “water white” optical crown glass, coated with 91% reflectivity aluminum and overcoated with a protective layer of silicon dioxide (quartz) for long life.
Diagonal Mirror Support
Fully adjustable diagonal holder mounted on a low-diffraction four-vane thin spring steel spider.
Two Eyepieces
Fully multicoated 2” 30mm (40x) 68° field SuperView Erfil design eyepiece with a wide 1.7° actual field of view that’s almost three and a half times the diameter of the full Moon.
The second is a fully multicoated high power 1.25” 9mm (133x) 52° field Premium Plössl eyepiece.
New Altitude Tension & Balancing System
This is another major improvement of this new altitude bearing system. The telescope can be balanced by moving it up or down a couple of centimetres. This may be necessary when adding or using very heavy eyepieces or a Camera. A scale on both sides allows you to easily achieve a symmetric bearing position.
Altitude Ball Bearings
Instead of the usual large circular trunnion bearings riding on a few Teflon pads in the semi-circular cutouts in the altazimuth base, the STAR TRACKER Dob uses innovative sealed metal ball-bearing systems to provide smooth vertical motion of the optical tube. The aluminum bearing housings fit snugly into cutouts in the sides of the altazimuth base. Because the bearings are sealed systems, the elements cannot affect the smoothness of the vertical motion, as it can when dust and grit invariably get trapped between the exposed trunnions and Teflon pads of conventional Dobsonians and scores the surfaces. The vertical motion of the STAR TRACKER tube is consistently ball-bearing smooth. And the sealed ball-bearings will not have to be replaced regularly, as is the case with the Teflon pads of many Dobsonians when wind-borne grit degrades the Teflon/trunnion interface.
Altitude Clutch
Large ribbed clutch knobs are built into the two altitude bearings. A gentle twist on either knob adjusts the amount of friction within the altitude ball-bearing systems. This allows you to keep the focuser from rising or sinking when changing between eyepieces of considerably different weights, as for instance when switching between 1.25” and 2” eyepieces.
Primary Mirror Cooling Fan
A lightweight 4.7” diameter low-vibration cooling fan is built into the mirror cell to assure faster cool-down times. The battery-operated fan is powered by a battery pack that uses eight user-supplied AA batteries and plugs into a jack on the mirror cell frame.
GSO 2" Dual Speed Crayford Focuser
The focuser is the most "visible" part of any telescope with the exception of the optics themselves. You touch the focuser all the time, the focuser is responsible for holding your eyepieces or camera in position and moving them precisely into focus in the first place. This way ultra-precise focus motion is possible for both visual and particularly photographical applications.
The features ::
The finest focuser GSO manufacturer has to offer. It is far superior to most classic rack-and-pinion focusers:
No image shift when focusing
Large load capacity: Up to approx. 3kgs with a firm friction setting
1:10 dual speed microfocuser for far improved focusing precision
2" compression ring
2" to 1.25" adaptor with compression ring and 2" filter thread
1. Smooth Focusing Action
The Crayford style focusing control makes achieving precise focus for visual observations and astrophotography a breeze and you will experience very smooth and precisely controlled focuser motion with zero backlash and zero image shift.
2. High-Quality Construction and Features
CNC machined from aluminum and anodized black, this focuser comes with a base plate adapter to attach to reflector telescopes. The inner drawtube glides on 4 precision bearings and a roller shaft and provides. The inner barrel is baffled and painted a flat black to minimize reflections for maximum contrast.
The 2" focuser barrel features a brass compression ring so your eyepieces and other accessories will not be marred by the set-screw. Also included is a 1.25"-2" adapter with brass compression rings that is threaded to accept standard 2" filters.
The inner draw-tube barrel is anodized black and features a laser-etched scale.
3. Tension Adjustment and Focus-Lock
The focuser has two large thumbscrews on the underside. The thumbscrew on the telescope side can be used to lock the focuser, allowing the use of heavy accessories or cameras without fear or slippage or losing focus. The other thumbscrew on the eyepiece end can be used to adjust the tension of the focuser to achieve a focusing "feel" that you like. At the easiest (lightest) setting, the focuser moves extremely smoothly. At tighter settings, you can still use heavier accessories without sacrificing much of the smooth focuser action. GSO's rated load capacity for their Crayford focusers is about 3 kgs.
Eyepiece Tray
A standard equipment eyepiece tray attaches to the side of the scope’s altazimuth base. It has cutouts to hold one 2” eyepiece and three 1.25” eyepieces.
Azimuth Roller Bearing
A simple teflon friction bearing used by some other manufacturers (also by GSO in the past) offers a rather stiff motion that makes tracking at high magnifications difficult. This becomes particularly obvious when the telescope is pointed near the zenith so that the lever arm becomes very short. In this position tracking is almost impossible in some Dobsonians!
The new GSO Dobsonians have a modern industrial roller bearing for a very easy movement. Metal plates above and below the bearing prevent the rollers from sinking into the softer wood of the rocker box, so the movement will remain smooth even after years of use.