16-Inch f/4.9 Dobsonian Telescope

My second homemade scope and first big Dob, made in spring 2018. The original primary mirror, which I attempted to grind myself, was really bad (about 1 wave of astigmatism), so I switched it out for one made by Dan Landis.

I made the telescope itself on the floor of my garage with a router and circular saw. Despite the poor construction, the scope showed me a lot and won the 3rd place Junior award at Stellafane in 2018. It also graced the pages of the September 2018 Sky & Telescope. To make way for the 20.5" scope which succeeded it, I scrapped the structure and sold the mirror on eBay.

You can read the build thread here on Cloudy Nights

In 2025 I got the original mirror back from Dan to refigure and build a new scope out of it. This page will be updated as I work on that.