"Ideal" primary thickness in a Dobson I plan to buy a 12" or 14" dobson, the choice depending on my final budget and on the total weight of the instrument. I have several options for the primary mirror. I tried to find a formula that would give the acceptable range for mirror thickness depending on the diameter, maybe also on the material (BK7, pyrex, ....). Is there such a formula, or a back-of-the-enveloppe calculation, which could help me? If not, what do people go with usually (for these diameters, I mean)?

Thank you for your help.
If you're buying the instrument, as opposed to making it from scratch, my advice is to worry about the overall quality, as opposed to a single parameter such as mirror thickness. It boils down to whether you trust the vendor or not.

In any case, there is no simple formula. You could run the PLOP simulator and try a few different scenarios, and see what the overall RMS error is in each case. But the values will vary very significantly. The main factors are:


the diameter / thickness ratio
the number of support points in the mirror cell
the relative positions of the support points


All of the above assumes a traditional mirror with a flat back, and a classic mirror cell with multiple-of-three support points. But the analysis gets even more complex if it's a cell mirror (the back is not flat), or a honeycomb structure (the back is flat but there are empty spaces in the volume of the mirror). And then there are conical mirrors, etc.

It's difficult to second-guess the vendor, especially if you've never built an instrument. Just read the reviews, ask other owners, try and gauge the overall build quality.