Telescope Reviews: Re: homemade "scopebuggy" pics?

I need to look at the thread on the scopebuggy, but I make my own. The biggest cost is in the wheels. The rest is screws and old 2x4's.

I prefer all 3 wheels pivot. My scopes are stored in my basement shop, which has only a 27" wide doorway, so I need the space between tripod legs to worm my way around the doorjamb.

I have my 8" f/6 Springfield on one of these, an EM-10 on another (that holds either a C-8 or a 6" f/10 Newt, though the 6" has to be moved separate from the mount), and a Super Polaris on a Quickset Hercules tripod (pictured here).

This dolly was made with some 1x4's I had laying around. Subsequent dollies I use 2x4's arranged in a "T", like the first link above.

But I prefer all three wheels pivot for maneuverability. I also prefer to move them by pushing on the legs about midway up and/or putting my foot on the dolly to help the scope over bumps and cracks in our brick patio between my shop and my observing site on the grass. That way I have a firm grip on it if it ever wants to get tippy (or is that tipsy?)

All my dollies have different wheels, depending on what I had laying around at the time. The one pictured here has small wheels, but it does okay. The one that works best has 4" narrow wheels from Harbor Freight. These go right across the lawn and bricks without a care. I would think 6" wheels would do fine on most surfaces, possibly even gravel.

I don't like the way the scope buggy is used. I would be very nervous with me at the end of that long handle and the scope at the other, on the dolly. Back before affordable laptops for field use, I used to move my desktop computer around on an old dresser that I put wheels under, and a handle on the end. Once, a wheel caught in a rut when I was moving it around to the other side of the house (for morning planets) and it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion as the computer gently toppled off the back of the dresser on the side away from me. It still worked after that, but that cracked and skewed case always looked rather sad to me.

-Tim.

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"We`re just waiting looking skyward as the days come down.
Someone promised there`d be answers, if we stayed around."
-Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, "The Romance of the Telescope"

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