My wife, Melissa, has chastised me for not including “…the rest of the story” of the 18” Obsession in the previous blog post, so here it is:
Several years ago (I think around 2007) I was dreaming of getting a larger Dob and actually got on the Obsession website and printed out a picture of an 18” Dob to keep in my “inspirational” notebook. Years passed as I tried to save money for the larger scope (not easy to do while helping to put two kids through college!) and I looked at that picture many times. About a year ago I happened to Google “18 inch Dobsonian telescopes for sale” and ran across an ad that Ronnie Harris and David Lamb had placed on Flickr to sell their 18” Obsession because they wanted to get an even larger one. The scope looked great in the pictures they posted and it seemed like a really good deal but, at the time, I still didn’t have enough money to buy a scope of that size, so more time passed. Finally, about a week ago, I had enough money to get a used scope, so again I Googled “18 inch Dobsonian telescopes for sale.” What should come up but that same ad on Flickr? I couldn’t believe Ronnie and David’s scope had not sold yet even though they had reduced the price. I inquired on Flickr if the scope was still for sale. It was. So, I gave Ronnie a call, and after an evening drive to Mississippi a couple of days later, came home with a “new” six-year-old scope.
As it turns out, Ronnie Harris, the previous co-owner of the scope, is the webmaster for the Obsession Telescopes site and as such he used a picture of his and David’s 18” Classic scope for that web page. Care to guess what picture it was? That’s right, the one I printed out in 2007. Not only did I get an 18″ Obsession, I got that 18″ Obsession!
Cosmic? You decide.
