Dobsonian Telescope

A Dobsonian telescope is an alt-azimuth mounted newtonian telescope design popularized by the amateur astronomer John Dobson starting in the 1960s. Dobson's telescopes featured a simplified mechanical design that was easy to manufacture from readily available components to create a large, portable, low-cost telescope. The design is optimized for visually observing faint deep sky objects such as nebulae. This type of observation requires a large objective diameter (i.e. light-gathering power) of relatively short focal length and portability for travel to relatively less light polluted locations.

Dobsonians are intended to be what is commonly called a "light bucket" operating at low magnification, and therefore the design omits features found in other amateur telescopes such as equatorial tracking. Dobsonians are popular in the amateur telescope making community, where the design was pioneered and continues to evolve. A number of commercial telescope makers also sell telescopes based on this design. The term "Dobsonian" is currently used for a whole range of large-aperture Newtonian reflectors that use some of the basic Dobsonian design characteristics, regardless of the materials from which it was constructed.