I'm using my big SCT with the massive Celestron CGX/L and converting it to a Dobsonian telescope.
The first thing is to lose the mount. It's a massive mount so heavy you can't move it or carry it so out it goes. Plus, it takes too much time to setup and is too complicated with too many technological components that function subpar near EMI or don't function at all.
We will keep the Celestron EdgeHD 14" OTA and build our own wooden mount. It will have altazimuth motions and no electric motors. In traditional Dob style, it will have wood construction, simplicity and hand movement. The objective is to use and equip the 14" for Dobsonian use and run all those dob experiments. At f/11, the first focal reducer will take it down to f5.5. The second reducer forces it down to f/2.75, equal to a very fast Dobsonian and forgiving on deep sky imaging with no tracking.
These are special order focal reducers without the edge correction, and they insert into the optical train at the size of an EP, to be used with EdgeHD designs which already have correction. It will then be suitable for lucky imaging and taking thousands of short 1-second images for deep sky imaging. Without the reducers, the scope will handle planetary imaging with software and a special sensitive low noise CMOS camera.
This may become the intermediate step and test before the purchase of components to make a much larger Dobsonian telescope. It will all depend on the success of lucky imaging techniques and the ability to filter out and subtract a heavy dose of light pollution.
