I am not one to buy telescopes just for the sake of having them. If you look at my "collection," though, you may get the wrong idea. There is a very particular reason why and how each instrument was acquired, and so I present to you not just a list of equipment, but an explanation for the items on the list.

Coulter Odyssey Compact

In the beginning, I used a 3" reflector with plastic eyepieces and a cardboard tube. It was purchased with 13th birthday money at the local J.C. Penny department store. Not long afterwards, I was getting ready to enter high school. As a special treat, my parents offered to send me to US Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Since my grandparents lived there, it would only cost a few hundred dollars to go. I instead put the money toward a "real" telescope, which turned out to be a 10" Coulter Odyssey Compact. As the first commercial Dobsonian telescope, the Odysseys were pretty rough...but I was armed with ten inches of light-gathering aperture, which in the day was quite a lot! All through high school, I observed with the telescope and learned to star hop pretty well from my suburban backyard.

College came and went. The scope was too big to take with, and although I spent some time with members of the local astronomy club, my academic schedule and lack of automobile transportation kept my participation to a minimum.

Meade ETX

After college, I began my career in CAD/CAM and moved into my first apartment. The 10" Coulter was rather cumbersome to lug through the building, so after a few years, when the Meade ETX was introduced, I bought one. This was the spotter version (OTA only) which was easy to use with my camera tripod. I was even able to do some planetary observing on my South-facing porch.

The ETX was the first "polished" scope I ever owned, and for a while I was happily impressed with the machined tube fittings and fancy knobs. However, it was a 3.5" f/14 telescope, and therefore produced very disappointing views of deep sky objects.

Criterion Dynascope RV-6

As luck would have it, an ad on sci.astro.amateur was placed by a fellow who was selling a classic Criterion Dynascope RV-6...and the seller lived 10 minutes away! I jumped at the chance to obtain this classic 6" f/8 instrument. For a few years longer, it was my primary instrument. I even grew to appreciate the German equatorial mount, for it allowed the clock drive to function and thus offer me tracking. I was not accustomed to this, but it was great to not have to constantly nudge the scope every few minutes.

By the time I got around to re-designing my 10" so as to be portable enough for apartment life, it was 1997. With help from friends, I was able to construct the scope according the new design. After taking it out for a test observing run, disaster struck! On June 17, Milwaukee was subjected to massive rainfall and flooding ensued throughout the city. I lost my car in the complete flooding-out of our underground garage, along with my newly-constructed (but not-yet painted) telescope. If you want to see the 3D computer model of the design, I still have it.

Starmaster

After the flood, I decided to go out and purchase a Dodge Caravan. The idea was to allow for a larger commercial telescope, since I just wasn't in the mood to build another instrument right away. I was planning on attending my first Nebraska Star Party, but the flood changed all that. So, I took my vacation later in the year, and looking through the Internet I found a few star parties to attend: the Great Plains Star Party and Okie-Tex.

I caught only two nights of the Great Plains SP, but during that time I met Rick Singmaster. He had a 22" truss-tube Dobsonian that was very short - f/4.1. Since I'm not exactly a tall fellow, I liked this feature as it allowed me to use the scope without climbing a really tall ladder. But what I really liked best were the images. Over the course of talking with Rick and observing with him, I learned that short f/ratios don't inherently preclude fine images; you just need a set of quality optics in precise collimation. His other innovations, like the removable mirror cell and simple truss-tube system, had me thinking about the possibilities even at the early stage.

A few days later, I made my way down to Ardmore, OK. Okie-Tex began on Monday, so I checked out of my hotel and headed out to camp. Not long after I arrived, I walked around the field and found Rick set up with the 22" and an 18". He told me that he was delivering the 18" to a customer, but that I was welcome to use the 22" if I wanted to. He's no fool! The more I used that scope, the more I liked it. And since it was clear and warm every night of that star party, I got to like that scope an awful lot! Rick joked a few times that "I could roll it right into your van if you want" but I wasn't ready...yet.

At Astrofest that same year, Rick again had the 22" scope of my dreams. I took pictures of it with a few observing buddies, like I do with all of the interesting scopes at Astrofest. On Sunday morning, we had a lot of ground fog appear right around 2am. The seeing became very good, and I found Rick looking at Jupiter using 750x. It was incredible, and at that moment I also realized that a large scope can perform better on the planets than any boku-dollar refractor if the seeing allows. What more could I ask for? Well, some type of tracking would really help at that power. Rick then told me about a GOTO and tracking system he was thinking about. To me, that would be make for an unimaginably fantastic telescope, and I told him so. He laughed and said "you might see it next year."

Well, after that I just kept thinking about that telescope. I had a digital picture of it on my computer background at home and at work. I don't know if I would have called him on my own, but one Fall day Rick called me. He said he was going to sell the scope in order to make a 24" scope for himself, and wanted to give me first dibs. With my recent move to a house in Brown Deer, WI, I now had a private garage with room for storing a big telescope. And I already had the minivan. WOW! THIS COULD REALLY BE MY SCOPE, I thought. But I still asked Rick to give me a few days to think it over, during which time he graciously agreed to hold the scope. I had never really, in real-life hard terms, thought about spending that kind of money on a telescope. I hashed it around quite a bit, and while I had the cash for the first part and could save the rest for a Spring 1998 delivery, I was still unsure until a friend of mine admonished me to "go for it, while you're young, have the money, and don't have to ask anyone for permission!" 

So I called Rick back and said "I'll take it." Then I asked him about the possibility of adding the GOTO system down the road, when it was ready. Rick said that it would be ready by my delivery, if I wanted it. Right then and there, I decided I trusted Rick Singmaster enough that I ordered the first Sky Tracker GOTO system, sight unseen and unheard of by anybody. I knew Rick wouldn't sell me a line, and it was the best astronomical decision I ever made.

After the 1998 Winter Star Party, I got reports from some astro-friends on IRC that my scope and GOTO drive worked very well. Rick took it down to Florida to iron out the kinks and see how people liked the concept of a giant GOTO Dobsonian, and I understand the response was very positive for that "first light."

Fast forward to the spring of 1998. I agreed to met Rick halfway between Wisconsin and Kansas, at the NCRAL convention in Des Moines, IA. Rick arrived just after dinner on Saturday, and I left the room before the keynote speaker. Normally I would never do that, but I had better things to do that afternoon!

We set up the scopes in the parking lot. Rick was also selling his demo 7" Dob, and he put that scope through its paces with the new owner. Then we got my 22" scope put together. He was very good about pointing out all the little things about the scope and its operation. When he turned on the GOTO system and started slewing around, I couldn't help but laugh. I'd never seen anything like that in amateur hands; nobody had. I must have been grinning like the cat who ate the proverbial mouse, because Rick started talking about how well the thing performed at his place and at WSP. We were having a great time...

...and then we felt a few raindrops. Big, heavy ones. Suddenly, we found ourselves in a downpour! Even though the sky was partly sunny just a few minutes ago, we were caught in a freak burst of rain. Well, that scope came down in record time! Rick and I threw parts of it in his truck and my van, and then we jumped into the front seats of my vehicle. We were soaked to the skin! He must have seen I was worried about the scope, because he told me how the scope gets wetter than that on heavy dew nights and it's nothing to worry about. The electronics, however, were a bit of a concern. After a few minutes, the rain was gone and the sun was out again. We got some towels from my hotel room and dried off the scope components, putting the rest of the stuff in my van. Then Rick headed for home, while I went back to the convention activities.

As soon as I got back to my house in Brown Deer, I called my brother outside and we set up the telescope. I was very nervous, thinking that the drive electronics could have shorted out or been damaged by the rain. When it was all together and slewing around, though, my nervousness melted into sheer joy. I jumped up and down a few times and shouted "this is so cool!" Even my brother, who usually just rolls his eyes when I buy something astronomical, was impressed. When I asked him to take a picture of that triumphant moment, though, he went back to rolling his eyes.

So, as you can see, this has really been a long progression of logical moves. I have since purchased an Eagle Optics 80mm f/5 and a used Meade German equatorial mount. This is intended to be my rig for dabbling in astrophotography, should I ever get the urge, but right now it's doing a fine job as a decoration in my study. I also had a 6" f/8 Meade Dobsonian given to me, and I won a Celestron Firstscope 114 at Astrofest 2000. I loan these out to friends and people who show an interest in the hobby. I have an Identi-View solar filter for the ETX, and use it as my solar telescope, while the Dynascope RV-6 is my quick-setup scope for looking at the Moon and planets on my front lawn.

Future Projects

Now that my brother and I bought our own house in West Bend, WI, I think I'll add a permanent pier and mount when we build the new deck, so the Dynascope is even handier to use.

I have a 6-year-old niece who has expressed some casual interest in the stars. I plan to build a "kneebiter" Dobsonian mount for the 4.5" Celestron reflector, a la Orion's Skyquest 4.5 telescope.

The optics from the rebuilt 10" Coulter still survive. I don't know if I'll ever get around to making another scope out of them, but it's always in the back of my mind.