Scope History

(Photo by Appaloosa, from Wikipedia article on intel's 386 processor).

This Observatory has been in the works for the past 30 years. My father has always been a sci-buff since before I was born. When I was four or five, I would "gently" play with his 4" refractor. It made an excellent pirate spyglass. I don't recall breaking it though.............

I remember in the early 80's he would hide a Celestron catalog under his bed. The pages most looked at were the Schmidt-Cassegrain line, specifically the 8" SCT.

I remember vividly when he had finally saved up for the scope of his dreams, yet he pilfered from that account to purchase a state-of-the-art Intel 386 DX4 PC -the last computer one would ever need- with a 20MB hard drive and 2MB of RAM. Just so that I could play Sim City (it wasn't even called Sim City Classic at the time!).

As time went on, the scope account would be ransacked for numerous family vacations and the necessary equipment: Trips to Southern Utah, Disneyland, Jeeps, camp trailers, etc. Not to mention helping out with college tution.

Such sacrifices didn't go unoticed, and my father never complained -nor did he hesitate- to divert funds away from his precious telescope if it created memories for the family.

As time went on, I graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I found myself fortunate enough to find a job at my home town (where I also met my wife).

During the 40 minute comute to and from work, the topic would ocassionaly turn to the elusive SCT scope. This time, I decided to get involved. Being the good son I am, I informed him that an 8" would be too small, and that only a 14" would do. Especially now the kids were out of the house, it was time to think big. It took a couple of months, but after dozens of online links showing the photographic differances between images from an 8" and 14", he was sold.

All of this was nothing but talk, until one day my dad found out that Celestron was changing mounts on the 14" SCT's. The new mount was superior; however, it was also thousands of dollars more expensive.

It became apperent that if an older-style 14" SCT was not acquired soon, the 14" class would be forever out of economic reach. The search was on.

Luckily, one of the last 14" SCT's available in the US was found and purchased. On September 10, 2009, the 14" SCT arrived at its new home in Oak City, Utah.