Hi stargazers,

Last Saturday was the first time I used my new Obsession 15" f4.5 truss tube Dobs for more than just a brief look. I took it to Fremont Peak State Park about 70 miles south of San Jose, California. A number of amateurs gather at "the Peak" twice a month. The seeing was very good but the sky was relatively bright since the fog forgot to come off the ocean and cover the towns below the Peak.

The 15" Obsession is very well designed. It goes together in about 10 minutes. It also looks great. The wood parts look like fine furniture. It is very well balanced. It moves very smoothly. The mirror is 2" thick. The mirror box is light enough to be easily carried around by one person.

For a 6' observer there is no need for a ladder. With a tall observing chair you can use it as a "sit down scope" much of thetime.

The stars were very small points rather than the blobs often see in light buckets. Jupiter showed very nice detail. M13 with a 13mm Nagler (about 130x) was a beautiful ball of small stars. The NGC galaxy next to M13 was very easy to see. I did make a half hearted attempt to see the IC galaxy between the NGC galaxy and M13. The contrast is in this scope is excellent. I played around in the Coma/ Virgo area but no "serious" observing. I was hoping to do some "serious" observing this comming Saturday but it looks like we will have nothing but clouds, rats. ;)