Make a table for a tabletop telescope

If you or your child are just getting started in visual astronomy, I can recommend a tabletop telescope of 4.5" to 6", such as the Sky-Watcher Heritage 150 Tabletop Dobsonian. This telescope (reviewed here) has good quality optics, is compact and portable, and very comfortable to observe with. But it's missing a table.

Why make one

You would think that a tabletop telescope is designed so that you can use whatever table you may have handy: a picnic table, a foldup table, a stool, or just a small end table. That may have been the intention, or maybe just the marketing, but when you’re looking at objects in powers of 30x, 50x, 100x, or 200x, you need something very stable so the view isn’t all shaky.

Picnic table? Nope. When you sit on it, you’re going to make it shake. It is also unlikely to be in the best spot for observing and you can’t move around the telescope.

Foldup table? Nope. Really shaky unless you get one that’s built like a tank, and that defeats the portability factor that is often the main advantage of the table.

Stool? Maybe, if it’s solid and the right height. You could cut the legs to size, but will it be large enough to fit the telescope? It may also be bulky if you have to transport your telescope to a remote location.

End table? Three legs will be better for leveling on uneven ground, and you have the same problems listed above as a stool.

Well, that’s a bummer. You thought a tabletop scope would be just the thing for portability. Now you’ve got one and no good table to put it on.

Fear not. Some people use a milk crate, build a simple tripod, or buy something at Ikea like this stool.

Or...and you knew this was coming...you could have fun and build your own observing table. It’s not hard (if I can do it!), and you can customize it for your own observing needs. Continue reading to achieve tabletop nirvana.

How to do it

The table I built for my Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150P, a 6-inch collapsible tabletop telescope, is simply a round piece of 1/2” plywood with holes drilled in it to hold eyepieces and three legs made out of cheap 2x2 lumber that can be unscrewed so the table top lies flat for transport. The legs are cut with about a 10 degree angle so they provide a little more stability than straight legs, although you could make them straight to simplify things even further. Each leg has a 1/4-20 hanger bolt screwed into one end which allows it to be screwed into a t-nut fastened in the tabletop. Easy-peasy, and it takes up very little room in the car if you unscrew the legs.

I started by making a circular cutting jig for my jigsaw since I don’t have a router, the preferable way to cut circles. If you don’t even have a jigsaw, you can buy an edge-glued round piece of wood (I recommend 18”), although some reviewers have said they sometimes come unglued or split.

The base of my scope is about 14" in diameter. I decided on an 18” diameter circle so I would have a couple inches around the outside to drill holes for eyepieces and to put my cell phones and filters down. I used 1/2” plywood to keep the table as light as possible. With the scope feet directly over the table legs, it only needs to be stiff enough to keep the legs in place without bearing the weight of the scope. [9/22/2024 Update: Because the go-to on my scope is unreliable, I added an azimuth circle to the base of the telescope. The circle sticks out about 3/4" all around, so I built a new table, this time using 3/4" plywood and making it 20" in diameter. I like it better, and I recommend you go with those dimensions. It's a little heavier, but not by much. It also makes a great camping side table when you're not observing.]

My mistake in cutting the plywood circle with the jig and jigsaw was I trusted in a YouTube video that showed how easy and neat it was to use a cutting jig. In reality, the saw blade wants to either go inside or outside the circle unless you watch very closely. I had the saw run outside the circle on one part and inside on another, breaking two blades. 

Were I to do it again, I would only cut a couple inches at a time and check to make sure it was still cutting on the circle. Or I would just draw the circle on the wood and cut it freehand with the jigsaw. I’ve done that before and it comes out fine. I just might not do it if I need the precision necessary for an altitude bearing, for example, but for this purpose it’s fine.

Once I had a pseudo-circle cut out, I marked where the three feet of the telescope would go. You can simply place the telescope base in the center and mark where the legs go. To be more precise, you can divide the circle into three sections by drawing a diameter (1), then drawing lines (2 and 3) the length of the radius (9” in this case) from the outer point of the first line (1) to where it intersects the outer edge of the circle on both sides, then drawing the other two lines (4 and 5), as in the diagram.

To make sure I had the scope centered, I partially screwed a wood screw into the top of the circle in the center. Some of these tabletop telescopes have a threaded hole in the center of the base. I just placed that over the screw and marked where the three feet would go.

If you don’t have the center of the circle marked, you can find it by drawing a chord at any point on the circle (line 1) and drawing a second line (line 2) from the midpoint of that line using a carpenter's square or other object that will give you a 90 degree angle. Repeat in a different location (lines 3 and 4) and where lines 2 and 4 cross is the center.

To screw in the table legs you can get angled leg brackets, but I don't like the inserts they use and I wanted a nice flush surface so I could slide the tabletop in between stuff in the car easily. So I put three 1/4-20 t-nuts where the feet would sit. These need to go in from the top of the table so that when you screw in the legs from the bottom, they will be pulled in tighter, rather than pulled out of the wood. Make sure the t-nut barrel is long enough to grab at least a few threads of the hanger bolts in the legs but doesn’t stick out the bottom if it is inset about 1/8” (see below). You want the legs to contact the table when screwed in tightly to give a nice stable grip.

I used a 3/4” Forstner bit in my cordless drill to first inset the holes about 1/8” in the top of the table where the t-nuts would go. I didn’t want to go too deep in 1/2” plywood, but if you use thicker plywood you can go deeper. You just want them inset to give some edge for the telescope feet to catch on so it won’t slide easily.

Then I drilled a hole in the center of each inset with a 9/32” regular drill bit. If you don’t have that size, use a bit that’s just slightly larger than 1/4” because the threaded barrel of the t-nut will be a little larger than 1/4”. Hammer in the t-nuts from the top side until they sit below the surface of the table.

I wanted some eyepiece holders, so I marked off three holes along the outer edge of the table top in each of the three sectors. Test the fit by placing the telescope on the table and your eyepieces where the holes will be. Make sure the telescope clears the eyepieces through its full rotation of 360 degrees. When satisfied it would, I drilled holes with a 1-1/4" hole saw.  I also added a 2" hole to each sector, even though my telescope doesn't have a 2" focuser. I figured I might want to use the table for stuff while using my 10-inch, and I have a couple of 2" eyepieces. It would also lessen the weight further. [8/28/24 update: I may redo the top without the 2" holes. Twice now I've almost dropped an eyepiece through the 2" hole onto the driveway, thinking it was the 1.25" hole. Oops.]

I sanded both sides and the edge of the table top with a random orbital sander and the holes manually with small pieces of sandpaper and a scrap piece of PVC pipe.

As noted above, you can just make the legs straight at whatever height you prefer if you don't want to take the extra steps to angle the legs, although you will sacrifice a little stability. 2x2 lumber is cheap and you can make several sets if you like. I like to use balusters, which are the vertical pieces in a deck railing, because they tend to be straighter than the 8’ lengths of 2x2. Those can be horribly warped and actually cost more per linear foot at my local store.

To make straight legs, drill a hole in the center of one end, as straight as possible, a little deeper than the length of the wood screw part of a 2" 1/4-20 hanger bolt. Use a drill bit a little smaller than 1/4” so the screw will have plenty of wood to bite and hold tight. Screw it in by threading two 1/4-20 nuts and tightening the upper nut with a 7/16” wrench until you get the length sticking out that will work with your t-nuts, roughly 3/8 to 1/2 inch. You can unscrew it if you overdid it by putting the wrench on the lower nut and twisting counterclockwise.

To make angled legs, which will add stability to the whole setup, I found an easy way is to take a typical mitre box and lay the uncut piece of 2x2 diagonally so that one side is up against the top of the box as seen from above and the other against the bottom. Clamp it down. If you cut along the 90 degree slot in the middle you’ll get about a 10 degree angled end. For the first and the last cut, you’ll have to estimate and just clamp the wood down. 

Cut three legs so the ends are all at parallel 10 degree angles, i.e., the piece looks like a parallelogram from the side. I cut my legs 10-5/8” long, which, with the 1/2” plywood top and the 10 degree angle, gives me a table top height of about 11 inches, just right for my adjustable observing chair at the height I like to sit.

Now put each leg in a vise if you have one, so that the angled face is horizontal. Then just drill your hole in the center vertically. Screw in the hanger bolts as described above using two 1/4-20 nuts and a 7/16” wrench. When you screw the leg into the table, the other end will trace a small circle, but it will work. 

I adjusted the depth of each screw so that the leg would screw in tight to a particular t-nut where it points outward, and just marked each pair with painter’s tape on the table and leg so I could easily match the leg to the hole. Later I’ll use a Sharpie once I’m sure everything fits well. You can always readjust the screw depths as things wear.

If you use outdoor plywood, you don’t really need to paint it because you're not going to leave it out in the rain, but I got a spray can of spar varnish and gave the table a few coats. A cheaper option would be paint. I recommend white so it's easy to see at night and you can see where to put your eyepieces. If you use treated wood for the legs, they don't need to be painted but you can paint them. If a few drops of water soak in, they are dry enough to be painted, otherwise wait a week or two for the chemical treatment to dry completely before painting. Use a tack cloth after sanding everything to remove any sawdust and grit.

Lastly, I put a piece of white duct tape on the table top at each point where the legs go to assist setting the scope on the table so the feet are directly over the t-nuts.

That’s it. If you mess up, all the parts are cheap and you can redo any or all of it. You can also make legs of different lengths if needed.

My Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150P tabletop telescope (same as the recommended scope at the beginning of this article but with an electronic mount) on the table I built for it. It looks happy, doesn't it?

[9/22/2024 Update]: Here's the new table I built to accomodate the addition of an azimuth circle to replace the go-to. I made all the eyepiece holes 1.25" and painted it white. 20" diameter using 3/4" plywood. The scope is even happier now!

Materials:

Piece of Plywood 1/2" to 3/4" thick big enough to cut a suitable sized circle (18" is usually good) or precut wood circle

One or two 2x2" stair balusters

Three 1/4-20 t-nuts, short enough not to stick out from the plywood, depending on the thickness

Three 2" x 1/4-20 hanger bolts

Two 1/4-20 hex nuts

Paint or varnish

Tools:

Mitre box and hand saw

Power drill with 9/32" (for t-nut holes),  1/8" or 3/16" bit (for hanger bolt holes), 3/4" Forstner bit, 1-1/4" hole saw

Jigsaw (unless you are buying a precut wood circle)

7/16" wrench

Sandpaper, sander (or sanding block), and dust mask (I like this one for sanding, painting, and gluing)

Tack cloth

Two bar clamps or C clamps large enough to clamp a 2x2 in your mitre box and to the workbench surface (which could be a piece of plywood laid over two saw horses if necessary).

Bench vise

Hammer (a big, short bolt helps to hammer the t-nuts below level so you don't damage the table surface)

Carpenter's Square or L-Square 

Pencil or X-acto knife (makes more precise measuring marks for cutting)

Ophiuchus and Serpens in 3D

 3D Constellation post index and instructions

OPHIUCHUS, The Serpent Bearer, and SERPENS, The Serpent

The pattern we see.

The 3D version. Click for a larger image (for phones and small screens).

PARALLEL VIEW:

With labels:

CROSS VIEW:

With labels:

Data:

Object                                    Magnitude     Dist. (light yrs.)

67 Oph                                   4.0                 1200
θ Oph                                     3.3                   440
κ Ser                                       4.1                   380
ζ Oph                                      2.6                   370
δ Ser                                       4.1                   228
λ Oph                                      3.9                   173
Yed Prior (δ Oph)                    2.7                   171
μ Ser                                       3.5                   170
β Ser                                       3.7                   155
ν Oph                                      3.3                   151
Yed Posterior (ε Oph)              3.2                   106
ξ Ser                                        3.5                   105
γ Oph                                       3.8                   103
κ Oph                                       3.2                     92
Sabik (η Oph)                          2.4                     88
72 Oph                                     3.7                     87
Cebalrai (β Oph)                      2.8                     82
Unukalhai (ɑ Ser)                     2.6                     74
ε Ser                                         3.7                     70
η Ser                                         3.2                     61
Rasalhague (ɑ Oph)                 2.1                     49
γ Ser                                         3.8                     37
70 Oph                                      4.2                     17

Sagittarius in 3D

3D Constellation post index and instructions

SAGITTARIUS, The Archer

The pattern we see.

The 3D version. Click for a larger image (for phones and small screens).

PARALLEL VIEW:

With labels:

CROSS VIEW:

With labels:

Data:

Object                Magnitude     Dist. (light yrs.)

μ                             3.8                  1000
π                             2.9                    510
ξ²                            3.5                    370
δ                             2.7                    350
φ                             3.2                    239

Nunki (σ)                2.1                    228

η                             3.1                    146

Kaus Australis (ε)   1.8                    143

ο                             3.8                    142

τ                              3.3                    122

γ                              3.6                      97

Ascella (ζ)               2.6                      88

λ                              2.8                      78

Scorpius in 3D

 3D Constellation post index and instructions

SCORPIUS, The Scorpion

The pattern we see.

The 3D version. Click for a larger image (for phones and small screens).

PARALLEL VIEW:

With labels:

CROSS VIEW:

With labels:

Data:

Object                Magnitude     Dist. (light yrs.)

ι                               3.0            1900

Alniyat (σ)               2.9              700

π                             2.9              590

υ                              2.7             580

Shaula (λ)               1.6              570

Antares (α)             1.1               550

μ¹                            3.0              500

Dschubba (δ)          2.3              490

κ                              2.4              480

τ                              2.8              470

μ²                            3.6              470

ρ                             3.9              470

ω¹                           4.0              470

ν                             4.1              470

Graffias (β)             2.6              400

θ                             1.9              300

ω²                           4.3              291

ζ²                            3.6              132

HR6630                  3.2              126

η                             3.3                74

ε                              2.3               64

A simple dolly for moving a Dobsonian telescope from the garage or shed

Reader Pete suggested I write up something about my dob dolly pictured in the post on making the heavy 10-inch Dobsonian telescope more easily transportable. A dolly or hand truck is useful if you are using a heavy telescope at home or next to where it is stored, versus disassembling it and moving it by hand or transporting it to a dark sky site.

My home is around Bortle 8 (badly light polluted), but I still like to get the 10-inch dob out sometimes because it shows more in a light polluted sky than either my 4.5 inch or my new 6-inch reflector. So rather than heft the base and tube out onto the driveway every time I want to observe, I built a crude but effective flat dolly for it, as detailed below.

Option 1: buy a hand truck

If you don’t want to build a little dolly, you can simply buy a hand truck such as this one at Harbor Freight for somewhere between $50 and $100 and make a few minor modification to carry your Dobsonian. Usually this involves adding a plywood piece to make the toeplate larger (the flat part that the object sits on), adding padding for the scope tube about halfway up the frame, and a strap to hold the scope tube to the hand truck. 

In fact, this is what I am recommending for my brother who has a 6-inch Orion SkyQuest XT6. The scope is not very heavy, 31.5 lbs. total, but to get to a decent park in the city to observe he has to tote it about six blocks (he doesn't drive). Ugh. So a hand truck makes sense for him. Here’s a Cloudy Nights post that might give you some ideas.

Another advantage of a hand truck is that it's very useful around the house (toting bags of yard waste around, moving furniture, etc.).

Option 2: build a flat rolling dolly

Here’s how I built a very simple but also very crude rolling dolly for my 10-inch Dobsonian. Caveat- there are no handles, so I just push and pull on the scope base to move it. Also, mine has front and rear wheels that are different sizes because my driveway is on a three percent slope. This makes it level without any further adjustment so I can use my azimuth circle/digital angle gauge setup to find objects. Using a hand truck in this case would involve too much fuss and potential trouble. If your driveway or path is level or if you don’t need the scope to be level, you can use the same size wheels. If your driveway or path is not paved, or if you have to negotiate steps or anything taller than an inch or so, you are probably better off with a hand truck with 6” or larger wheels.

I had some scrap pieces of 5/8” roof sheathing plywood leftover from a roofing job. (Always see what your workers are throwing away and ask them to save it if you might find it useful.) The base of my 10-inch is a 22” diameter circle, so the dimensions are optimized for that.

I cut a 22” x 26” rectangle from the plywood. The extra 2 inches in front and back provide room to fasten the wheels on without getting in the way of the feet on the scope base or having the bolts sticking out and scraping the base.

I needed the front of the dolly to be 1” higher than the back to compensate for my sloped driveway. I bought a pair of 3” rubber rigid casters and a pair of 2” rubber swivel casters at Harbor Freight. These are 3-5/8” and 2-5/8” high, respectively, which gave me the just about the right adjustment for my sloped driveway. I thought about getting casters with brake levers on them, but these aren't strong enough to hold anything on a slope, just keep it from rolling on a level floor. The casters bolt through the plywood with four bolts each. You’ll need a drill and a pair of wrenches. Make sure you buy bolts that fit the caster holes.

I was able to put the nuts on the bottom of the fixed casters, but the swivel casters were smaller and the threaded bolt ends sticking up would have prevented them from swiveling, so I had to have them sticking up on the upper side of the plywood. It’s not optimal, but that’s what I had to do.

With an azimuth circle on the dob base, I wanted to make it easy to align with the cardinal directions, so I put a mark on the dob ground board that would align with a mark on the dolly to position the base so it would be roughly aligned in azimuth and I would just need to fine tune it each session.

I put the scope base where I would be placing it on the plywood and painted a white circle all the way around on the dolly’s surface to help me align it when plunking it down. 

To keep the base from sliding around, because I would be pushing and pulling it, I glued pieces of wood just outside each dob foot. Normally dobs have three feet, but I found adding three more feet from wood made it more stable on uneven ground, so I have six little pieces of wood glued to the dolly. Just make sure they are shorter than the dob feet so they don’t touch the ground board.

That’s pretty much it. I didn’t even waste paint on it, since it will be spending most of the time in my garage, and paint is often one of the more costly parts of any woodworking project.

So how well does it work?

My only real complaint is that it’s a little hard to maneuver with the two swivel wheels, so I just have to go slowly when pulling/pushing it in and out of the garage. To keep the scope from rolling down into the street, I use a rubber wheel chock from Harbor Freight and a rubber sanding block under each front wheel. If you use something different, make sure it's not going to just slide down the slope. I always stand on the downhill side of the scope when rolling it to and from the driveway.

If you have to roll the scope over a threshold, for example I have a 1” bump from my driveway into the garage, use a piece of baseboard molding a bit longer than the width of the dolly. It has a tapered profile that works nicely as a little ramp. Tip: Save some pieces of any molding you replace. I’ve found multiple uses for this.

Just be aware that you’ll be adding about 4” or so to the height of the eyepiece when observing. Even my adjustable observing chair needs a booster cushion at its highest adjustment for some positions when the scope is on the dolly. I don’t notice any instability or shaking in the views from being on the dolly.

If you have a telescope on a heavy tripod and mount and want to build a dolly, here's an article from BBC Sky at Night that might give you some ideas.

Bonus Tip: If you have a store like Harbor Freight or Northern Tool near you, or can order from one, you can save a lot of money on many items, including tools that you’ll only use occasionally. Better to have the right cheap tool than the wrong high quality tool. I don’t have any affiliation with them, I just like to save money if I can.

I have gone over to the Dark Side

For most of my observing “career,” I have starhopped to objects, later replacing a straight-through finderscope with an azimuth circle on the dob ground board, a digital angle gauge for altitude, an app for the alt-az coordinates of objects, and a right angle/correct image (RACI) finder to find things when my neck just couldn’t take the contortions of a straight-through finder anymore.

Well, that has been working fine, but I decided I needed a downsized scope for when I can’t handle the 10-inch dob. Enter the Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150 Tabletop Go-To Dobsonian.

Wait...what? Go-to?

Yep, I have gone to the Dark Side.

I did way too much research (although I had a lot of fun doing it), and finally settled on a 6-inch tabletop scope. This is my first new scope in 20 years. I’m an adherent to the philosophy that you really can’t beat aperture to see things better, so after much hemming and hawing I ruled out refractors, at least for now. A 6-inch refractor is huge, heavy, and very expensive. I also ruled out catadioptric scopes due to the total price per inch of aperture and the longer focal lengths with correspondingly narrower fields of view. I also don't want to see things mirror-reversed after looking at them for 30 years in correct orientation (albeit rotated 180 degrees).

I could have gotten a 6 or even 8-inch standard solid tube Dobsonian, but I kept thinking how nice it would be to have tracking, where the telescope’s motor tracks the object you are looking at so you don’t have to keep resetting the telescope as the Earth rotates. This is particularly nice during outreach events where you have a lot of people taking turns looking in the eyepiece. And I wanted to keep the weight and bulk down.

My choice for a downsized scope

I settled on the Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150P. I figured if I have to give up some aperture, I can at least add go-to and tracking to compensate a bit. This telescope is a member of the "tabletop Dobsonian” family, really a half-fork mount hybrid. Other telescopes of this type include the very popular OneSky from Astronomers Without Borders (see the megathread on Cloudy Nights), the Zhumell Z130, the Orion Starblast, and the Sky-Watcher Heritage, with models available in 114mm (4.5-inch), 130mm (5-inch) and 150mm (6-inch). When in doubt, my advice is to take the larger aperture when possible. The Virtuoso GTi is the only one with a go-to mount at this time.

This particular scope has a roughly 14-inch diameter base, a 16-inch tube when collapsed (27 inches when extended), and weighs a total of 19 lbs., which is 49 lbs. lighter than my 10-inch and a whole lot more compact. Now that's downsizing!

I’ve had the scope out in the Redneck Observatory a few times and to my regular semi-dark site a couple of times. It’s taking a bit of effort to get used to the go-to, which doesn’t always seem to play well with my Android phone, but when it does, it’s pretty cool. I do love the tracking. The phone disconnects every 15 minutes from the scope’s WiFi unless the Synscan app is in the foreground, and I’ve tried every tip from users to no avail. Eh, not a biggie, but still annoying.

After trying to control the scope through Sky Safari Pro with its “tilt to slew” feature and constantly overshooting the target, I decided to just use the Synscan app to center objects after the initial go-to movement done through Sky Safari Pro. I dial the slew speed down to 3 in Synscan and it works pretty well. I have had it sometimes just start slewing off the object on its own, but I'm not sure that isn't user error. I still say it’s a whole lot easier and a lot less frustrating just to push a non-go-to dob around manually to find stuff.

The scope retails for $470 currently when not on sale, which is a pretty good price for a 6-inch mirror, go-to, and tracking. It will even resume tracking if you disengage the motor to manually move it around and then reengage, what they call "Freedom Find," using dual encoders. More important, the optics are good. Most important, it's fun!

As with any inexpensive telescope, there are suggested mods. Of course you’ll need a table to put it on, one that is stable. I built an 18-inch round table out of a scrap of 1/2-inch plywood and three legs from 2x2s screwed into t-nuts so I can break it down flat. A popular solution is the Super Simple 2x4 Tripod for Tabletop Telescopes if you want to stand and observe. If you don't want to build your own, some people recommend this stool or this table from Ikea.

The helical focuser also has some play in it, which has several potential solutions. The one I implemented was putting a 2-inch hose clamp around the top of the focuser housing and tightening just enough to take out the play. I also smeared some lip balm on the threads. I really like it now. I find I can use my Svbony 7-21mm zoom eyepiece no problem without any twisting and shouting. My Baader Hyperion zoom sits all the way down in the focuser to the point where the thumbscrews holding it in rub against the bottom edge of the eyepiece housing, but it works, and it's a better eyepiece than the Svbony (also a lot more expensive). [Edit: I added an O-ring to the barrel of the Hyperion and it no longer scrapes.] I also constructed a light shroud out of black craft foam, because with the upper assembly extended on two truss tubes there is no protection from light and dew, both common in my neck of the woods.

Added a light shroud and 11" high tripod table.

The main problem for me, aside from these quirks, is the red dot finder, which is a very cheap plastic thing mounted very close to the tube circumference. My neck just can’t take straight through finders anymore, but fortunately you only need it for initial alignment, although I have found I sometimes need to align it a couple of times during the night when it decides to go off somewhere on its own instead of where I tell it to go.

To solve the finder issue, I zip-tied a dovetail base for my right angle correct image Svbony SV182 finder that normally lives on my Tasco 4.5-inch to the end of the green dovetail bar. Not optimal placement, but about the only place it can go on this design, and it works without messing up the balance. I just need to get up out of my seat to look through it. In regular star hopping use this would be unacceptable, but for alignment it works okay. I might make a more permanent mounting piece out of wood. There is a 1/4-20 tapped hole there so I wouldn't even need to drill any holes in the tube.

RACI finder mounted on the end of the dovetail
(green) with a zip tie.

I opted for a reflector over a "cat." Kitty was not 
amused, but seems over it.

I’ll post updates as I get more used to this thing of the Dark Side. In the meantime, I have made a mod to my 10-inch manual dob so I can keep using that, too, despite my deteriorating physical condition.

7/19/24 update: If you have an Aldi store nearby, the Easy Home Collapsible Hamper makes a great cover for this scope. Turn it upside down and it's the perfect height. Also keeps its shape.

8/31/24 update: See my post Why does finding things easily have to be so hard? for my issues with the go-to and tracking on this scope.