Vision Quest is a 17.5" f/4.5 Dobsonian that originally began its life as a typical, not-so-hot 1986 Coulter Odessey.
Steve Swayze, of Swayze Optical, refigured the mirror to a near perfect correction. The optical performance is exceptional. Jupiter exhibited more detail one calm morning than I have ever seen in any scope.
At first glance, she looks like the very popular and really nice looking Obsession Telescopes, but it's not...totally. The bearings and upper truss cams are Obsession parts, but the rest of the commercial components are from an Astrosytems Telekit. I used Baltic Birch for the construction material. It has great strength qualities, and it is free of unsightly voids. The secondary is a 3.1" Galaxy with Novak holders. I had Paul Zacharius, of Spectrum Coatings, to apply enhanced coatings to both mirrors. The complete telescope was patterned after Dave Kreige's book "The Dobsonian Telescope".
I have had several to ask why I painted the scope Canary Yellow. Quite simply, I like to be different, and I didn't want to run over it in the dark.
