10-inch F/5.6 "Boppian" Telescope Built by Bob Bunge

|Bob's Scopes Home || 4.25-inch f/4 Travel Scope || 4.25-inch f/10 Planetary Scope || 6-inch Ultra Small Travel Scope || 10-inch f/5.6 Boppian || 12.25-inch Suitcase Travel Scope || TJ: A 20-inch f/6.4 Dob || 31-inch f/7 |

Last touched 2001 November 30


Built in 1984 by Bob Bunge and Marshal Holman in Lillian, Alabama. Based on St Louis ATM Thane Bopp's two strut compact design that was published in Telescope Making Magazine in the early 1980's. Every thing on this scope is homebuilt except the optics.

Built from AC quality 1/2" plywood with spruce struts. No tool assembly using standard thumb screws. Mirror box and focus board store in rocker to present a very, very compact unit for transport. Designed to be transported in a small compact car that can not handle a full size 10-inch OTA. Perfect height for observing using a standard height chair.

Very stable design that can easily handle very breezy observing conditions. Large 8-inch diameter bearings. Smooth, steady motions make this scope a pleasure to use. 2-inch Crayford sytle focuser. Homemade 50mm finder built using surplus miltary bincular objective. Accepts standard 1.25-inch eyepieces. Finder does not include an eyepiece... use one of your own, or buy a cheap eyepiece to use in the finder. Homemade spider, homemade mirror cell. Unique trap doors in mirror box act as mirror cover and also provide a niffy storage compartment for eyepieces/finder/accessories.

1978 Coulter full thickness mirror. 56-inch focal length. This mirror predates Coulter's entry into the cheap Dobsonian market. Never tested, but a good mirror, perhaps 1/8 wavefront. Delivers very good planetary images. 2.1-inch secondary mirror. Excellent deep sky telescope. I've observed hundreds of galaxies with this scope, including the Draco and Ursa Minor dwarf galaxies.

In 1999, I sold this scope to my long time observing partner, Brent Archinal, who now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. Not only is the scope used by a great observer, but it only has to travel out the back door of the house to get to 7th mag. skies! This page is hacked from my for sale ad.

click for larger image

click for larger image

click for larger image

click for larger image